Bo Diddley
Well-Known Member
Dog food at a push, far too good for Illegals, they should be on rice & beans + one hard-boiled egg a day, just like that superb prison in El Salvador.Go into dog food or feeding illegal immigrants
Is the Deer Act out of Date? (for England)
- Thread starter Tim.243
- Start date
How far is the fox population affected by the release of game birds each year? The deer act should be re-written as a Hunting Act encompassing hunting in all its forms and engage the full range of expert practitioners to make it effective, safe and enforceable. But that’s too sensible, so we’ll carry on as we are.
And across the border they got to grips with it like this so don't leave them out
All male deer can be legally shot year-round in Scotland since the removal of the closed season for male deer in October 2023, meaning there are no specific open seasons for male deer of any species.
Some years back when I stalked a large estate that had three different pheasant shoots on it we only ever saw Muntjac on one of them. Taking a step back to work out why, it was quickly apparent that the keeper on that shoot was the only one who actually put time & effort into fox control properly starting with cubs & then maintaining wires throughout the year. The other two lamped a few foxes on the stubbles etc. & no more. The effect, one shoot with no real fox numbers & no predation of muntjac fawns = increase in adult muntjac. The other two shoots with foxes throughout the year had constant predation on fawns = no increase in adult muntjac.
Sorry...it was a bit of a tongue in cheek response to a poorly worded comment and where I shoot there arent any roe and there has been a massive increase in fallow numbers. If people dont agree with fox shooting fair enough..but I dont think the increase in deer numbers is as a result of people shooting to many foxes..but each to their own
See comment above...slightly sarcastic comment on my part
Hayduke
Well-Known Member
And across the border they got to grips with it like this so don't leave them out
All male deer can be legally shot year-round in Scotland since the removal of the closed season for male deer in October 2023, meaning there are no specific open seasons for male deer of any species.
I don’t know what you mean ‘got to grips with’ in Scotland, it isn’t that simplistic.
If you mean the no tolerance approach you seem to be promoting for ALL? England. I’d state that across most of England deer populations are well managed (there are areas that do not have our native deer species - something that should exercise the rewilders who are intent on bringing back all sorts of things but are blinkered on this). Agreed there are significant issues in some southern areas with fallow and muntjac but that doesn’t hold for everywhere.
Arguably deer management is complex and controversial in Scotland, where the no tolerance policy is driven by resentment, reverse snobbery, rewilders and carbon agendas (grifters peeing public money up the wall). Do you want that in England?
It would indeed be interesting to know the balance there, because no one I know releases gamebirds with any success into an area that is not subject to systematic pest control. Any inroads made by foxes are likely to be short-lived if the keeper and his helpers are up to snuff.
8x57
Distinguished Member
I very much fear that should the existing Deer Acts in England & Wales be amended, then the Welsh assembly will take the opportunity (which is within their powers) to impose their own legislation just because they can and effectively stop all stalking within the borders over which they have influence.
If you think things are confusing with 3 different systems in place already between the four home nations just think what it would be like with four Acts in place.
Well if you look at their approach of removing magpies from the GL then thats a real possibility. Frightening...
Most interesting. I have 2 areas of ground. One - already mentioned - is heir to a culture that abhors the shooting of foxes, and they are consequently plentiful. On the other, where a different culture reigns, I have been shooting foxes for over a decade, making some 70-80 sorties annually and killing a similar number of foxes. However, over the last couple of seasons, fox sightings there have fallen to the extent that I have shot barely 10% of my previous numbers. This suggests to me that there is more intensive fox control taking place on our neighbours' ground than formerly, preventing incursions. My impression is that in the same time period I have been seeing more young muntjac. It is true that I've been going foxing less frequently, partly because it feels less urgent, and partly because repeatedly drawing a blank is a disincentive. Nevertheless, I run several trail cameras, and the frequency of fox vs muntjac in their images appears to support this impression. Sadly, none of this is even remotely scientific.
It wasn't very many years ago that Welsh Government was subsidising anyone who wanted to do their DSC1, so I don’t think that stopping shooting deer is on their agenda.
Something to do with the Welsh Deer Strategy.
Welsh Government set itself a 10 year timeframe in which to develop a deer management strategy for Wales, and then did nothing. At the end of the 10 years, with nothing to show for it, they basically decided to make up for it by throwing money at anyone in Wales who wanted to do DSC1, with the aim of increasing the number of people managing deer in the principality.
I think at the time I did my DSC1 (organised by the Deer Initiative), everyone was getting something like 50% funding. That was a few years back now. I don’t know what the current situation is.
timbrayford
Well-Known Member
Absolutely not, any revision of the act would be based on the the say so of Natural England, they're doing plenty enough damage to the countryside as it is. I know from my own conversations with them that they scapegoat our wild deer for all manner of manmade impacts and they'd be perfectly happy to see our wild deer population reduced to a relic level, if not exterminated altogether!It seems everything equipment wise has moved on leaps and bounds with every bit of kit, training, funding, chillers, home business, stalking forums, outfitters,
people eating venison, syndicate's, drone survey's, most of the above in the last 10 years, the main stream internet is nothing like is was in 1983 (yes it was started in 1969)
Crops, tree planting, deer fencing, farming practice's and kit are off the scale
Top of the range in 1963/2025
More deer (in many places) than ever before yet the deer act has not kept up with an evolving deer population
Anyone using their 1963 Cortina for stalking lol
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8x57
Distinguished Member
I don't recall that and I've been on the various mailing lists for quite a few years. I've also attended a few briefing days/seminars on the deer management strategy
When two or three years ago a few of the guys on this site posted about the availability of training grants from Forestry England and were successful in their applications. To be eligible you had to be resident in England or your area of operations had to be mainly in England.
I enquired with the Welsh assembly and Natural Resources Wales to see if such a scheme was being mirrored in Wales and was informed that it wasn't and that they had no plans to introduce a training grant scheme for deer management.
Well it was definitely a thing, and I and a number of other members of this site benefitted from it.
8x57
Distinguished Member
I'm not doubting you Tim, just wondering how it was funded. Perhaps the funding was sourced by BASC or the Deer Initiative and was localised?
I facilitated a DSC1 course through the D.I. some years ago and a couple of the guys on that course had some sort of financial assistance but from whom I don't know. All I can say was that it certainly wasn't publicised and If it was Welsh assembly policy at the time they never made that known.
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