poaching

roedeerred

Well-Known Member
Seems we are suffering from poaching epidemic around east /north yorkshire I know my area well and use game shooting as way of counting population of roe. we seem to have lost between 8 and 14 deer in last 3 weeks from a small part of our shoot where we normally move groups of 3to 5 we were seeing only ones and twos yesterday.i thought they seemed difficult to find over the last week or two. :cry: :cry: :cry:
 
Might not be poachers could be anything have you found any evidence of deer or injured deer.
 
I hope it's not, it's s bad thing to have to deal with.

Have you found any physical evidence ? it may just be natural variability in their behaviour e.g. because of the bad weather. Do you have any baseline dung counts or similar to go back to and compare?

S.
 
On our shoot we always see 3-4 in one spot and another 4 or so in another,

not enough to manage but an odd one every few years to keep them in check.

this year we have found heads and tyre marks only.
 
I suppose even poachers suffer from the credit crunch, down this way Roe Deer fetch £35- £40 a time. Easy money as long as they`re not getting caught.
basil.
 
bobt said:
On our shoot we always see 3-4 in one spot and another 4 or so in another,


Bobt,
In my opinion they probably are not the same deer. That 3 you see might well be a Doe and two young and next year it maywell be the same doe but 2 new young. during the winter they will form into groups and headonto the fields and be a bit more visible but very often it will be different deer as last years young are expelled into thier own territories.

as for poachers....

they are also committing crimes like burglaries and diesel thefts whilst theyare on you.

Unfortunately there are not the amount of rural police patrols that once there was. We, decent people, are part of our own problem. I speak to many people who have poachers but never report it to the police because they say (often rightly) "nothing gets done, whats the point?"

The police is like everything now, it is demand led. so if there are no calls for service from the rural areas, nothing is happenning. However there are lots of calls for service from the towns from people who report far more minor incidents. They don't feel the same "the bobbies are busy enough....." as many rural people do.

so when it comes to staff planning meetings it is very dificult to deploy 50 % of your staff to the rural areas when only 5% of your crime takes place out there.

So the onus is back on us. When you go out on your ground and you see tyre tracks, phone it in on the non emergency number. When you find heads and feet, phone it in on the non emergency number. But tell the call taker "we have had deer poachers on the ground overnight" not just that there are tracks on my field. --- each type of crime has a searchable classification code. so we need to do our best to make sure it goes into the right code box.

If you have guys lamping (illegally) on your land and you see them call 999. tell the operator if you suspect it is a gang of men with firearms poaching your deer. remember that thier experience of poaching may have been reading Danny Champion of the World.

This way the demand is there and the inspectors can refer to the incident numbers when they bid for more staff.

It will seem like nothing happens, but if it is logged and you get an incident number then you can be sure that it will counted for resource allocation purposes.

swampy
 
I have little doubt on this one i know the are well have lived here all my life. have heard shots early hours but no lights then a vechicle a while later.I reckon they are useing night vision.cannot afford it my self but then would have little use for it except to try and spot pochers!
then again police are unlikly to attend we had four burgularys last week and rarely see a police car off main road
 
I wouldn't worry too much about the fact that they seem to have been poached, on my estate during the start of the game season we see alot of Roe, but as the season progresses the numbers seem to get smaller as the coverts are shot, yet a dawn stalk will often show them still to be there.
I think they get used to game shooting and move out of the woods once they hear the beating line and head for quieter areas. And if the area of ground is small that you shoot over then they will quickly disperse when the day starts.

On the other side of the coin there is a poaching problem in North Yorkshire, I cover an area close to the A1 which is a major link for the ****s with lurchers who travel down from the north east.
Sunday mornings around here it is not unusal to come across 15+ rough ass blokes with lurchers going where ever they please and dont give a toss who or what they damage if they are challenged.
Last week a near by estate found three dead Roe in a heap all killed by dogs.
Deer poachers seem to like leaving a calling card, like they heads or pluck where they can be found, I guess it is a way of braging and winding the keeper up, which it does do.
There is also the odd case of poaching with lamp and rifle and also shotgun, and the advent of nightvision scopes hasn't helped, but I haven't had many problems of this kind.
It may be an idea to make your deer lamp shy, quite easily done by getting them in the lamp and wasting a few shotgun shells firing them in their direction (but not at) them.
I do this quite often and it will help if they are being lamped.

If you are being poached or even suspicious make sure you report it, North Yorkshire police take wildlife crime very serious, and in some areas of the county it is becoming a priority. My wife is heavily involved with NYP and tells me to report everything, for if they dont now about it how can they combat it.
Hope you are not being targeted, it does make you paranoid if you think you are, I should know !!!!

Cockerdog
 
Seems its really common this year even the nature reserve warden says the reserves have been hit. woken up this morning again at 3-43am at least thats what my clock said.i know the police just do not have resorces to do mutch was at west yorks workshop a couple of months back hopefully things will improve.
 
They must be good at it if they are not leaving a trace and you are not seeing any wounded deer. It might just be a lad how has no ground and is removing a few for the pot.
 
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