When pressure is applied they turn into so many ghosts, they might be out mob handed before midnight one night (this is when they get ‘educated‘ by uneducated controllers, or at any rate, the survivors of the shoot-up do), or can be out in small numbers between 2-4am, sometimes only for a few minutes at a stretch. The paradox of red deer control is that they are most successfully managed where they are afforded some peace, ‘shoot on sight’ guarantees even wider dispersal and exacerbation of the problem, but Naturescot and others seem not to know too much about deer behaviour. I know of neighbouring estates, where their ‘softly, softly‘ policy achieves over 130 per season, every season, whereas the other estate has them permanently on the run, and their numbers don’t come anywhere near the required cull figure. Go figure!
