Legal removal of deer from land without shooting

malmick

Well-Known Member
As per title really, what options are available?

I'll add a little context for those who wish to read it.

One side of my property shares a boundary with a water board company who's land covers several hectares, has water treatment units and some open land with three copses and maintained grassland. We are 2 1/2 miles out from the centre of a big city and on one side of the water board land is a main road into the city. The rest of the water board land is well fenced where it backs on to other open land and has a high stone wall around the rest of it where it borders the back gardens of local houses. Deer have lived on this land for about 25 years and I've always considered them to be fairly captive and self-contained, feeding on the grassland and copses and rearing young.

During this time I've seen several deer on a daily basis on the land but only once seen one outside it. I know of one event where a deer was in the car park of a block of apartments that back on to the land. I've never heard of deer being seen or wandering onto the main road or been run over.

An area of just less than one hectare that contains the largest copse and borders my property and that of neighbours has been sold and a planning application has been submitted for housing to be built.

It is quite possible that if the development goes ahead they may simply fence the existing deer into the water board side of the land and let nature sort itself out.

Any further thoughts or ideas gratefully received.

Thanks,

Mick
 
Hi

As your post suggests that you are adjacent/near the proposed development site I would recommend that as a planning application has been submitted that you, as Local Resident, provide your comments to the Planning Case Officer including the fact that there are deer present, and should be relocated and not enclosed

The Planning Authority will have an Environmental Officer/person who will look out for Great Crested Newts etc. and they should take the wildlife into consideration.

L
 
Sorry if I am being a bit thick Mick but I don't follow what your actual question is.
Are you asking if it there are legal means by which a landowner (possibly the water authority) can remove deer from land without shooting them?
 
If it is deer welfare that concerns you I can see at least two ways of playing this;

Given the nature of the land you describe the planners will probably require an Ecological Impact Assessment anyway. However, my experience is that while ecologists are good at identifying sedentary creatues they will struggle with the more subtle evidence left by deer unless they actually see Bambi on the day.

You can comment on the planning application (notice I said 'comment', and not object) and just flag it up to the plannners, espcially if you have photographic evidence.

I have seen a number of ecological reports come back as negative when I know this not to be the case (I am not a planner by the way, but I am a professionally involved in the development process).

Alternatively, look on the application, contact the developer, advise of them of the potential issue the ecological report will flag up and offer to deal with the problem for them....

ATB
Lloyd
 
Thanks for the replies so far guys.

Loki: I'll be sending in my comments in response to the planning application since two of the houses would be directly overlooking mine. There is no mention of deer in the preliminary ecological report, so I'm interested in the range of ways that they might consider in dealing with the deer.

8x57: That's exactly my question.

Sighthound: As above I will be raising comments on a range of other matters. I went to a public viewing of the proposals last month and the deer were discussed with the developer by me and quite a few others. At that stage they didn't comment on how they might handle the matter. I'm curious.

Cheers,

Mick
 
The ecologists will be concerned with 'notable and protected' species and not really fussed about deer. Follow the advice above about just pointing it out in a response to the planning application. If you have some suggestions about how it could be dealt with then add those in too. As someone involved in the planning process I am always happy to read comments and see if the issue can be dealt with. Highly mobile, non-protected species are often just left to sort it out for themselves but it would be good for them to have a route to be able to get out of being enclosed.
 
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