estimating roe populations

Mungo

Well-Known Member
I know this is like asking the length of a piece of string hidden in a darkened cupboard in an unknown house at an unspecified location, but...

What would people with experience estimate the density of roe to be in the following conditions (just rough upper and lower limits):

600 acre farm in North Fife.

Mostly (70%) sheep/cow pasture - some improved (flat, lawn like), some not (tussocks and gorse thickets and patches of raggedy scrub). Some woodland (mix of 5-8 year old broadleaf and much older, unmanaged spruce).

Surrounded on 2 sides by dense forestry (spruce), one side by more cow pasture, and one side by arable.

No stalking carried out over previous 5 years.

Any thoughts very much appreciated.
 
The answer to the piece of string is easy (twice as long as half of it ) the answer to your deer question, the only way you will ever know is to spend 24 hours a day 7days a week on the ground and then it would only be an educated guess
 
I am amazed,if not slightly sceptical that there is 600 acres in North Fife that has had no deer stalking in recent years, depending on the type of pasture and age/type of grasses you might well see a number of deer pay a visit from the forestry. but not so much if the pastures are heavily grazed by sheep.

Best way to get a handle on what is about is to clock up some hours on the ground, even if this farm has not been stalked the neighbouring land will be and "your" ground might well be providing your neighbours with a constant supply of incomers.


Regards

BP
 
600 acre farm in North Fife.

Mostly (70%) sheep/cow pasture - some improved (flat, lawn like), some not (tussocks and gorse thickets and patches of raggedy scrub). Some woodland (mix of 5-8 year old broadleaf and much older, unmanaged spruce).

Surrounded on 2 sides by dense forestry (spruce), one side by more cow pasture, and one side by arable.

No legal or organised stalking carried out over previous 5 years.

Any thoughts very much appreciated.

sounds like it could be a perfect "bed and breakfast" scenario.
you have 420 acres of "breakfast" and your neighbours have the "bed"!

Best get some time on the ground to quantify it though.

i too am synical that anywhere within 100 miles (or more) of a town in Scotland can claim to have not been stalled over any timescale.
i had a seat in a syndicate on the far side of the world in a remote forest plot 10 miles down a forest track with a locked gate.
after none if us shooting for a 3 week period I found enough car tracks, litter, footprints down rides and signs that it may as well have been the Lake District on a bank holiday!
some cheeky sod even left a Eroing target he had used!
 
Stab in the dark since its bordered by block forestry. But sounds not too dissimilar to our farm of 800 acres and I estimate there to be around 30 - 40 Roe on that lump of land at any given time. Sometime less but never usually more.

Tom
 
WHAT DEER ARE EXCLUSIVELY TERRITORIAL TO YOUR GROUND PROBABLY FEW ENOUGH, WHAT DEER MAY BE USING THE GROUND, DEPENDS ON SO MANY VARIABLES IT IS POINTLESS TO GUESS. iF YOU HAVE TIME TO CAST A LAMP OVER THE GROUND AND SPY IT AM AND PM YOU SHOULD DEVELOP A REASONABLE ESTIMATE OF WHAT DOES ARE WHERE AND WHAT THE RESIDENT BUCKS ARE. hOW THE DEER ARE MANAGED IN THE NIEGHBOURING FORESTRY WILL HAVE A MAJOR BAREING ON WHAT SORT OF RESEVOIR OF DEER ARE AVAILABLE.
i WOULD ALSO WALK THE FENCES ,BURNS AND DEEP COVERTS TO SEE IF THERE ARE MANY BONES FROM OLD DEATHS LYING AROUND.
 
Thanks folks.

I've been out three times and seen between 1 and 8 in a couple hours walk, so was wondering where to extrapolate/guesstimate from there.
 
How much of the ground did you walk? How much of the cover did you 'tap out' to see what was laid up? Quite difficult really, especially as you have block forestry close by. The more time you spend there the better idea you'll get! Are you looking to determine what cull figure you should try achieve?
 
This time of year is not a bad time to see the population before they start to go their separate ways. In the mid '70's I remember stepping out the back door one evening in early April and looking east 100yds or so. 16 roe were in the field and a 17th was in the forestry on the other side of the fence. Regards JCS
 
How much of the ground did you walk? How much of the cover did you 'tap out' to see what was laid up? Quite difficult really, especially as you have block forestry close by. The more time you spend there the better idea you'll get! Are you looking to determine what cull figure you should try achieve?

Walked the whole farm, but probably didn't 'tap' all the cover (a fair proportion though).

Not actually looking to work out a cull figure yet - I appreciate that's going to require a much more intensive and rigorous counting effort. I'm just hoping to get opinions on the sort of upper and lower limits to expect so I can tell whether my future counts are woefully out. A sort of rough calibration ahead of actual surveying.

Thanks for the feedback folks - much appreciated.
 
I would say, lower end would be around 15 no. and upper end (allowing for the block forestry) could be 30 or so. A count depends on so many factors, I was out 2 weeks ago and counted 14 deer on one half of our farm, about what I'd expect. Went out Wednesday morning in the same area in the easterly wind and saw only 3!
 
At the end of the day, 600 acres will arguably not need a "management" plan based on population estimates at all for Roe deer.

The shape and size of the farm could well mean that your Roe population is a very transient one anyway and as previously mentioned your neighbours "management" attitude towards deer could possible negate any efforts on your part.

By all means be selective with the animals that you shoot, but not shooting animals will not necessarily translate to an increase in Roe on the ground and may well reduce numbers of deer seen if you are harbouring fiercely territorial ageing Bucks and Does .

I have stalked deer in Fife both professionaly and recreationaly for the last 20 years, I have taken every shootable deer I have ever seen, both male and female as most of the landowners I manage deer for wish for numbers to be reduced.

I could go for a stalk today and I will see as many if not more deer of similar quality as I did on the ground 20 years ago, my efforts would appear to have had no effect on the deer holding capacity of the ground or population numbers .

Get out there and enjoy your stalking and take what shootable animals present themselves, after all the Roe population in Fife is continuing to increase.

Regards

BP
 
lower end would be around 15 no. and upper end (allowing for the block forestry) could be 30 or so.
This is what worries me about "cull figures" IMO too many people are worried about maximising their "management" of the deer and either turning that into a financial figure or justifying the cost of the stalking. I have seen this to its worst effect when a syndicate of 5 "stalkers" took over the roe stalking on an estate I grew up on. (mix of arable and mature coniferous forest) There are no young tree plantations, no areas that are being damaged, the deer were doing a fine job of managing themselves with some "sporting stalking" taking out a reasonable number every year. Roe were regularly seen in small groups in the fields These "deer managers" shot the equivalent of one a day for two months. Didn't see a single roe again for over 10 months. Only now have any been seen and in such sporadic and low numbers it will take a long time to get them back. I don't believe cull figures should be apportioned in Month 1 and rigidly stuck to regardless.

As above, take a sensible number from what you see and enjoy it!

You need to be flexible as you will see quite quickly what you shooting is doing to the actual population especially the more you get on the ground. your population is not "your" population. it will be on someone else's ground as well, and as such part of their cull figure.
 
Given my blundering stalking and more-miss-than-hit shooting, I don't think there's any danger I'll be over-harvesting! But it is nice to know roughly where the population might be.

Strangely, I've only seen a single yearling so far.
 
You can try to come up with some "relative" abundence by doing deer counts & densities then "guessing" how many deer to the acre/hec & go from there.

The most accurate cheep & simple method to come up with "absolute" abundence is to run several transects over the property on several occasions. Then do a cull & record the numbers killed. Then repeat the transects & see how the numbers have changed. Use this "change in ratio" to determine what percentage of the pop you've taken how many,there was before the cull & how many are left. The counts on the transects before & after now are the baseline for determining both "relative" & "absolute" abundence in the future.

Cheers Sharkey
 
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