If deer stalking were to be banned, what would happen?

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South of the M4

South of the M4

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[FONT=&quot]A recent post by Monkey Spanker on another thread piqued my interest. He wrote:[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]‘Left unchecked, deer populations would increase by about 30% per year, or approximately double every 3 years. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]In harsh cold areas with limited food supply, the population would be eventually naturally checked by mass starvation. However, in areas such as East Anglia where we have potentially a massive holding capacity for deer, the population would spiral out of control for many years. The effects on woodland and farming would be devastating and eventually reach the point where other species (including us) would become short of food and suffer. The human death toll on our roads from Deer Vehicle Collisions would also be unacceptable. If there is one discipline of shooting that has a strong future it has to be deer management.’ (Thread: British Deer Society now anti deer hunting, post no.40)[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]I agree with his assessment, but moving this forwards, can anyone point to any research or numbers that can pin this down a little more? [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Any sensible and sober observations could help make an anti deer shooting debate reflect on the realities of their wishes.[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]Apologies to MS if I hijacked his observations that were meant for the other thread, and thus may be out of context.[/FONT]
 
I don't have it here just now but a book I was reading on sika populations appears to indicate that recruitment is a goodly bit less than 30% as there is quite a high mortality up to about 1 year old. However the 30% figure comes from the fact that your population will be about 1/3 stags, 1/3 hinds and 1/3 calves and almost every hind will have a calf so a given population will increase by about 30% per year if you ignore calf mortality. There will also be mortality in the older population, clearly nothing lives for ever, but this is a much smaller number than the 30% new calves. I would imagine that on some ground, as MS was sort of saying, the calf mortality might be quite low and so the 30% figure might not be too far wrong.

If you are interested in sika and want a good book on population and the like then this is worth a read, expensive I know but I got a second hand copy for much less and considered it well worth it:

Sika Deer: Biology and Management of Native and Introduced Populations: Amazon.co.uk: Dale R. McCullough, Seiki Takatsuki, Koichi Kaji: Books
 
Just look what has happened to the badger population since they became protected.
 
Deer stalkers done seem to be doing a great job of keeping the numbers down a point where car travel is safe.
Or at least that is what a 200 miles round trip from Essex to the oxford area showed, dead deer carcass's on M25, A41 M40
Not sure what the toll on cars/occupants was, but even a large car hitting a large deer at 70 + mph in the outside lane of the M way is going to leave a mark.

That said if the government were in the least bit bothered they would have done something about the deer numbers.

Neil.
 
Bavarianbrit said:
Most German Autobahns are fenced to protect from this.
Old money story again.
BB
Click to expand...

They, also, have built tunnels, under the Autobahns, to give the deer, and other animals, a safer passage. I lived in Germany for 30 years and, in areas where these tunnels were built, the Vehicle Animal Collisions were dropped, drastically, almost to the point of non-existent. The answer is not mass reduction of the herds, rather giving the animals a place to, safely, cross the Motorways and other roads.
 
It won't happen.

Forestry and forestry expansion is too important to the Government's climate change policies, whether this is new commercial woodlands or natural expansions of upland woodland. Add in the impact on the wider enviroment and all the wooly hatters would be jumping up and down.
 
slider said:
It won't happen.

Forestry and forestry expansion is too important to the Government's climate change policies, whether this is new commercial woodlands or natural expansions of upland woodland. Add in the impact on the wider enviroment and all the wooly hatters would be jumping up and down.
Click to expand...

One can dream.
 
well i drove from wigan to ramsgate on fri for work and back again and all i saw was one fox and that was on the sea front. so all that proves is my nature attracting after shave doesn,t work except for half a dozen pee,d up females screeching at 2.30am outside my b&b.and that included a grand tour of outer london and essex because of the m25 closures here there and everywhere.:old:
 
There would be an awful lot of illegal deer killing done by land owners and farmers. Possibly with unsuitable equipment (as there would be no need for civilians to own CF rifles or expanding ammo) and in a totally indiscriminate manner, with no regard for herd welfare, or genetic improvement. The availability of venison would be so low as to take it off the shopping list for all but the most ardent eaters of the meat, and this would have to be farmed venison not wild.
Rural communities supported by the income derived from sporting hunters would suffer as their landscape changed to a beleaguered landscape of overgrazed heath and moor, stunted woodland.
It's a bleak picture, which I doubt we will not see as although we seem to have our way of life threatened by uneducated, uninterested city dwelling populous, there are people in the public domain and decision making circles who realise that deer numbers must and will be controlled for the good of our environment and the deer population at large.
We need to become more professional and more open to explaining these needs to the general public, show them how it enhances the environment they enjoy at the weekend, have them realise the value of the product and the economy it supports, and above all get them to realise that we can not and do not have a "wild" Britain. Almost ever inch of this land is managed for one purpose or another and it is not feasible to leave such a large mammalian species out of that system without it having a major and destructive impact.
This is why I, when ever the chance arises try to talk with people who show any interest, whether positive or negative into why I stalk/hunt. I never tell them they are wrong, or they have no idea of how the environment works. I have developed an approach which on the whole seems to allow the conversation to be positive. Lets hope we can use the need for our management of deer and the environment to champion our way of live and in my case the need to hunt.
 
Purchase one of these with taxpayer funded compensation:
uFWlz2d.jpg

K
 
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