@Conor O'Gorman I haven’t yet listened to the podcast, but I fundamentally disagree that night shooting of deer should be seen as “normal” practice for sustainable deer management.
It’s being thrust upon us by the rewilding authorities that want all deer eliminated from the landscape. That’s not conservation, that’s species eradication.
BASC should be promoting sustainable management, and if particular land management cannot get their deer numbers under control we should be looking at alternatives such as getting more hunters onto the land. Indeed lets use some of the techniques used overseas. Rather than driven pheasant shooting we should start looking at driven deer whereby a large cull can be achieved by a team of guns in one or two days, rather than continuing harassing deer at night and driving them ever deeper into the woods, onto roads or into towns and villages.
Yes it would require training and organisation, but many British stalkers have the skills from shooting abroad, and the skills can be learned and developed. It just needs a change in mindset.
And given deer’s ability to breed naturally and not needing the cost of rearing, releasing, feeding phaesant / partridges etc i would suggest that driven deer would be a lot more affordable to the hunters, whilst at the same time providing a good income for estates from venison and hunting fees.
It’s easy enough to make your hunters very selective in what they shoot - either by instruction or by the wallet or combination of both.
basc.org.uk
