NGO Deer Management Strategy for England dated May 2024
- Thread starter 308rws
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cookingfat
Well-Known Member
Spear Chucker
Well-Known Member
It might be well written but I -for one ( I assume there will be others thinking the same) am unsure of the content. I am not suggesting it is all wrong, I just think there is a lot in there that gives me grave concerns.
cookingfat
Well-Known Member
What are your concerns?
Spear Chucker
Well-Known Member
I distrust anything that DEFRA and the EA / NE / Forestry Commission control. They have been taken over by DEI/ESG philosophy (non toxic centrefire for squirrels anyone?) and have failed miserably on a number of fronts that fall under their control over the last 20 years. Why else are the boards of the water companies criminally (yes criminally) polluting our rivers not in gaol? These agencies are unimpeachable when things go wrong. Deer will be no different. I fear that the NGO, while well intentioned, will open up our world to intrusion by people who have no interest in the welfare of deer nor the rights of those who manage them or own the land on which they live. I fear they will just create a situation where we are subservient to the unanswerable dead hand of the state. In effect taking us back to the 1700s where only a select few have access.
Intruding upon the right of a landowner to choose who is on their land and what happens on their land is nothing other than Marxist expropriation. Whether they do or do not condone deer control must remain entirely a matter of their conscience if we inhabit a "free" country. Don't get me wrong, I know this is no longer a free country.
Anything the Government -in whatever form- takes control of is a disaster from start to finish. Scotland and Wales are good examples of what we can expect when a political landscape changes. Politicising the deer population and its control is naive and dangerous. The first thing that will go by the board will be interests of a healthy deer population and the ethics of control.
I am a firm believer in the need for pot hunters to be able to hunt for the pot without having financial and intellectual burdens or barriers placed in their way. I know some who can barely fill in an FAC renewal form, but who are skillful and ethical stalkers of considerable knowledge. As I have said on SD before, there are some of those people who, on their worst day, are better stalkers and countrymen than some of us will be on our best. Forcing them to undergo DSC1 and DSC2 or equivalents would be both a financial and intellectual barrier. It would cause many of the type to fall away, or resort to other means of satisfying their need to hunt. It is a need for most of us, after all. Few of us are doing it because we have to. Make no mistake, these will become requirements, no matter what the likes of the NGO and BASC will say. They have sold us down the river on almost all of the major issues, this will be no different. They stand to make a lot of cash selling and administering the courses and the endless updates that will follow.
For the record, I hold DSC1 (from the days when it counted) and am considering signing up for DSC 2, so I am not averse to formalised learning, or improving my knowledge. I just object to forcing it upon other people. It is un-British, unnecessary and unkind.
I am not too worried about it becoming policy, because the dear old NGO have not met the many very monied people who own land and despise people like us. Many of these people fund the Labour party locally and nationally and have considerable influence. We will probably find that this magnificently written piece of literature will be buried. Meaningful action on the subject will horrify the new minister just as extending the badger cull would. It will moulder in a filing cabinet until LACS and PETA pick it up and use it against us.
Quietly (and probably perversely) I quite like having a serious deer problem -within reason. It forces the comfortable, urbanised population that think animals are people, to confront the realities of the natural world. There is nothing so good for us as the local squillionaire DFL having his roses murdered...or someone in a white Range Rover Evoke finding out what 60lb of muscle and bone does to the front of a car when that car is driven at too great a speed on country roads while ignoring the nice picture of a deer in a red triangle at the start of the wooded section of the road.
The NGO, BASC, CA, NFU and other lobbying organisations delight in presenting themselves to government as the "Voice" of whichever sector they are twittering about at any given time. While their views intersect with my own on occasion, I find them all increasingly "overlord" like and an enemy to my sensibilities. Please do not imagine that I am ungrateful to them for the good work they do on occasion.
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It makes a lot of sense for the most part ,
It’s makes no reference however to landowners that own pheasant shoots not allowing culling in the shooting season ?
We all know this goes on as keepers are to busy with shooting too cull does or don’t want there stalkers disturbing the birds .
This then only leaves feb/march .
If the ngo are going to write a document like this surely mention ALL the reasons for the expanding deer numbers ?
It’s makes no reference however to landowners that own pheasant shoots not allowing culling in the shooting season ?
We all know this goes on as keepers are to busy with shooting too cull does or don’t want there stalkers disturbing the birds .
This then only leaves feb/march .
If the ngo are going to write a document like this surely mention ALL the reasons for the expanding deer numbers ?
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