Sutherland deer poor condition due to the bad weather

widows son

Well-Known Member
Went walkabout to a mate of mine,s to help out with the last of the hind cull in Sutherland, only to look at starving deer due to our incriminate weather, on talking to the various estate stalkers, the dead that are laying around will make a huge impact on highland stalking, in the next 5 to 7 years ,I watched large numbers of Red calves , in groups on the hill which the hinds ( mothers ) have no doubt died due to the over hard weather, in that area ,here's a few pics if you look at the Royal with his head back you can see just how thin he is, the hinds are extremely thin the game dealers, are condemning large numbers of deer due the there poor condition .

Picture1418.jpg


Picture1414.jpg


Picture1420.jpg


Picture1402.jpg
 
Widows,

a couple of the hinds look ok. I am surprised that your mate was culling any if it was that bad, or was he mopping up the worst conditioned animals? That stag does look a bit weary, hopefully the fine fella will make it through.

Unfortunately, we still have the wet and windy to come yet, thats what can knock the stuffing out of them, especially when they are already below par.

Good photos.

J
 
Jingzy: A mop up job is just about right, the biggest problem is the Deer commission cull figures, larder figures should tally up to the same number somewhere along the line .
You can see the Deer laying dead along the side of the forestry fences it was a few days of snow chains everything above Lairg was the Xmas card look without the snow chains on, the single track roads were a no go area.
 
A cold driving rain in March and April would really screw things up further. It's hard on them when they're already in such bad condition. :(
 
dont take this the wrong way as i dont know much about it up your way, but wouldnt they come down to a few round bales of hay/silage were left for them.or would only a few come for it? poor buggers they havent half just had a bad winter! on a lighter note we noticed fester has had a very good winter :lol: hes the shape of a barrel now :eek:
 
I understand the deer commission setting cull figures Widows son but surely they have a back out clause. Every one knows this has been a very bad winter and there is more to come yet. It might be worth you giving them a call and asking them to reduce the cull in that area. All the best on the rest of the deer.
 
They know about the condition the deer are in. They have recently done their deer count, by helicopter, and the word from a stalker doing it with them was that deer were lying dead in the hundreds out on the hill.

John
 
Its been below freezing and snow since before Christmas and we have at least another 6 perhaps 8 weeks of hard weather to go. I think there will not be so many roe this year but the ones i have seen don't look in bad condition. they must be really struggling to find food though.
Our roe did go into the winter in very good condition the ones we shot in november were very fat. The Moose have no problen with this type of weather.
Sad as it is to see the red deer suffering perhaps its natures way of balancing things out.




www.prokennel.se
 
I suppose the harsh reality is that nature is affecting its own cull on numbers. I did quite a bit of research into the carrying capacity of ruminents - notably deer and antelope on marginal lands. Admittadely most of what I looked at was how antelope can survive the African dry season when food is minimal, but what seemed to be the key for good survival rates through the hard times was having a sufficiently low stocking density that all the animals were in very good condition prior to the lean times, and then being for the animals to be able to find sufficient food to enable them to survive on a mix of food and body fat reserves.

What seems to happen if there is a degree of overstocking, none of the animals get a sufficient level of nutrition to enable them to put on sufficient reserves and thus you get a much bigger die off during the harsh times.

What is also critical to a ruminent is having a source of protein / nitrogen in their diet - c15%, without which they cannot derive any energy from the rest of their diet - you can keep cattle etc alive for a long time on ammonia treated straw, or even newspaper that has been peed on.

If you also consider that much of the Scottish hill ground is devoid of trees and other forms of cover then the deer don't have any natural shelter, nor access to any form of really nutitous food such as fallen acorns etc. All the will have to eat on the hill is old grass, heather and moss, all of which at this time of year will be very low in protein. If they could get to woodlands and thus access to nuts etc, this will make a huge difference, but in most cases the deer will be fenced out of the woodland.

What seems to keep african animals alive through their winter, is the availabilty of seed pods from mopane etc - high in nitrogen thus allowing them to gain nutrition from dried grass, leaves etc.

Not that these provides any answers, but there is clearly a big conflict in the land management with on the one hand estates being valued by the number of deer that are on the land / can be stalked per annum giving huge pressures on keeping numbers high versus the requirements of foresters who view deer as vermin versus the likes of the DCS who are trying to take an overall view etc etc.
 
tika.308 said:
dont take this the wrong way as i dont know much about it up your way, but wouldnt they come down to a few round bales of hay/silage were left for them.or would only a few come for it? poor buggers they havent half just had a bad winter! on a lighter note we noticed fester has had a very good winter :lol: hes the shape of a barrel now :eek:

many estates feed daily tika.308 but this winter has been very hard i have had dead beasts very close to the feed stations. there have been hundreds of dead or dying deer picked up in sutherland this year. alot of estates have ceased culling and are now only shooting beasts that are dead standing the weather is hard but there is not an awfull lot can be done about it. there hasent been a winter as hard as this for along time and the deer just cant handle it.
 
What has happened on my doorstep in Sutherland this winter has been sickening to say the least.

I have been waiting for the ''natures way of thinning the deer out'' and the ''there were too many deer anyway'' arguments to be trotted out, and can honestly say that in the conditions we have experienced recently, neither argument is relevant.

For a start in this area we have some of the lowest deer densities in the country, the ground I look after has about 1 deer to every 25 Ha - hardly overstocked me thinks!

Secondly, there is nothing natural about the environment that our deer currently find themselves forced to live in - they have been denied access to thousands of acres of their traditional wintering grounds over the years by blanket afforestation and ill thought out, grant incentived native woodland schemes.

This has been got away with for years because of the relatively mild winters we have been having. Unfortunately it has taken the exceptional conditions we have had this year, and the resulting disaster, for some people to realise the error of their ways.

As I have previously stated I am not against woodland schemes IF they are planned thoughtfully but you cannot deny deer access to important ground and just expect them to get on with it, As my physics teacher used to say 'for every ACTION there is a REACTION'.

Many deer have died whilst naturally seeking traditional shelter that they have used for centuries, only to come up against a fenced swathe of ground that they can neither get round nor penetrate.

The weather, of course also played a significant part and many groups of deer were left trapped in a 3 foot layer of sandwiched snow and ice which they could neither dig through to forage nor walk through to shelter.

As for the actions of our government bodies..........one has been indiscriminately leathering every deer in sight with a complete disregard for both the welfare of the deer and their neighbours interests, the other (the DCS) recently sent round a letter asking everybody to make sure and stick to their culls!!!

It is not the point that deer are a survivor (because they are) and it is not the point that things will be better for the deer in 20 or so years when a lot of the fences come down (because it will). The point is that we should be showing our largest, iconic (and in some areas most valueable to the local economy) land mammal a hell of a lot more thought and respect.
 
traveler said:
What has happened on my doorstep in Sutherland this winter has been sickening to say the least.

I have been waiting for the ''natures way of thinning the deer out'' and the ''there were too many deer anyway'' arguments to be trotted out, and can honestly say that in the conditions we have experienced recently, neither argument is relevant.

For a start in this area we have some of the lowest deer densities in the country, the ground I look after has about 1 deer to every 25 Ha - hardly overstocked me thinks!

Secondly, there is nothing natural about the environment that our deer currently find themselves forced to live in - they have been denied access to thousands of acres of their traditional wintering grounds over the years by blanket afforestation and ill thought out, grant incentived native woodland schemes.

This has been got away with for years because of the relatively mild winters we have been having. Unfortunately it has taken the exceptional conditions we have had this year, and the resulting disaster, for some people to realise the error of their ways.

As I have previously stated I am not against woodland schemes IF they are planned thoughtfully but you cannot deny deer access to important ground and just expect them to get on with it, As my physics teacher used to say 'for every ACTION there is a REACTION'.

Many deer have died whilst naturally seeking traditional shelter that they have used for centuries, only to come up against a fenced swathe of ground that they can neither get round nor penetrate.

The weather, of course also played a significant part and many groups of deer were left trapped in a 3 foot layer of sandwiched snow and ice which they could neither dig through to forage nor walk through to shelter.

As for the actions of our government bodies..........one has been indiscriminately leathering every deer in sight with a complete disregard for both the welfare of the deer and their neighbours interests, the other (the DCS) recently sent round a letter asking everybody to make sure and stick to their culls!!!

It is not the point that deer are a survivor (because they are) and it is not the point that things will be better for the deer in 20 or so years when a lot of the fences come down (because it will). The point is that we should be showing our largest, iconic (and in some areas most valueable to the local economy) land mammal a hell of a lot more thought and respect.

100% agree with all that
 
Mauser66 said:
traveler said:
What has happened on my doorstep in Sutherland this winter has been sickening to say the least.

I have been waiting for the ''natures way of thinning the deer out'' and the ''there were too many deer anyway'' arguments to be trotted out, and can honestly say that in the conditions we have experienced recently, neither argument is relevant.

For a start in this area we have some of the lowest deer densities in the country, the ground I look after has about 1 deer to every 25 Ha - hardly overstocked me thinks!

Secondly, there is nothing natural about the environment that our deer currently find themselves forced to live in - they have been denied access to thousands of acres of their traditional wintering grounds over the years by blanket afforestation and ill thought out, grant incentived native woodland schemes.

This has been got away with for years because of the relatively mild winters we have been having. Unfortunately it has taken the exceptional conditions we have had this year, and the resulting disaster, for some people to realise the error of their ways.

As I have previously stated I am not against woodland schemes IF they are planned thoughtfully but you cannot deny deer access to important ground and just expect them to get on with it, As my physics teacher used to say 'for every ACTION there is a REACTION'.

Many deer have died whilst naturally seeking traditional shelter that they have used for centuries, only to come up against a fenced swathe of ground that they can neither get round nor penetrate.

The weather, of course also played a significant part and many groups of deer were left trapped in a 3 foot layer of sandwiched snow and ice which they could neither dig through to forage nor walk through to shelter.

As for the actions of our government bodies..........one has been indiscriminately leathering every deer in sight with a complete disregard for both the welfare of the deer and their neighbours interests, the other (the DCS) recently sent round a letter asking everybody to make sure and stick to their culls!!!

It is not the point that deer are a survivor (because they are) and it is not the point that things will be better for the deer in 20 or so years when a lot of the fences come down (because it will). The point is that we should be showing our largest, iconic (and in some areas most valueable to the local economy) land mammal a hell of a lot more thought and respect.

100% agree with all that



seconded
 
It's not just the reds that are struggling. Just back from a fews days stalking sika in the borders.

Found 5 dead myself, calves and stags, which I guess are the two groups likely to suffer. Stalker said 30 deer have been found dead so far, so you can only guess at the numbers out of sight.

Those that are still standing aren't fairing much better. Mature hind came into the larder today 15kg gralloched and minus head and lower legs.

We also had a very nice 8 point stag stand 100 yard away on a scree slope and watch us get out of the truck to glass him and generally discuss his condition (poor, poor, poor). Even though he is out of season, I would expect him to have a bit more nous were he firing on all cylinders.

Novice
 
Back
Top