Article by Dr Jochen Langbein. Dr Langbein is a wildlife research biologist, and acts as independent Secretary to the Quantock Deer Management & Conservation Group.
Management culls do not equate to mass slaughter of deer.
(from Dr Jochen Langbein, 19/11/2007)
In reporting on the call by the Quantock Deer Management and Conservation Group for more female deer to be culled in and around the Quantock Hills this winter, the media have widely used emotive terms such as mass slaughter and bloodbath. While the truth about deer or other wildlife management usually makes for less exciting headlines, I welcome this opportunity to ask readers to delve beyond the headlines, do some of the necessary elementary maths for themselves, and to consider the wider reasons that have led the very broad array of individuals and conservation organisations which make up the QDM&CG to ask local landowners to move towards culling – yes, more deer, but do so also in a more collaborative, selective and sustainable manner.
A visual spring (pre-calving) count of red deer on the Quantocks has been organised annually with the help of 50 volunteers for the past 17 years. Deer are difficult to count accurately not least when within concealing cover, but this standardised count enables at least minimum numbers to be confirmed and trends to be monitored. The average of counts obtained during the five years from 1993-1997 was 555, rose to 745 from 1998-2002 and taken across the last five counts has averaged 830 red deer. Aside from the rise in overall numbers, the proportion of adult males in the population has fallen thus raising also the rate of population growth. The spring count records merely the annual minima before at least 350 or more calves will have been born last summer, taking the total by autumn to somewhere near 1100 red deer.
Culling of deer on the Quantocks is nothing new: in the absence of any significant natural mortality around 200 to 250 or more red deer will have been culled in most recent years. The exact number and breakdown of the cull is not known, as rightly or wrongly (the latter in my view) game laws in England remain so lax that there is no legal obligation on landholders to report to anyone how many deer (or indeed foxes or crows etc.) they cull nor limit the totals culled in any way. While only a minority of landholders report their culls to the Group at present, culls taken over recent years have clearly been inadequate to prevent the observed increasing trend in deer numbers and distribution; in part because the total cull has been too low, but mostly because the proportion of adult females included in the culls needs to be greater if the trend is to be reversed.
The Quantocks are far from being alone in all this. A report by BASC (British Association for Shooting and Conservation) in 2006 estimated that the annual cull of deer taken by its members in the UK approached 250,000 head including over 155,000 culled within England. In addition near 60,000 deer are killed as a result of collisions with vehicles every year (see www.deercollisions.co.uk). That carnage of deer and other wildlife arising from our ever increasing levels of road traffic might indeed justify terms like indiscriminate and mass slaughter, but even when added to the quarter of a million deer that are culled legally with rifles each year the national deer cull has to date been insufficient to prevent significant increases seen in the numbers and distribution of roe, red, fallow, sika and muntjac deer in numerous parts of the country.
For appropriately qualified and experienced stalkers red deer are not an especially difficult species to cull. The more complicated task lies in getting the many owners whose land the red deer herds roam over to agree and jointly work towards maintaining a healthy and sustainable herd, to be conserved as a highly valued part of our wildlife and asset to local tourism, but which remains in balance with the environment without unacceptable levels of damage to farm and timber crops or detrimental impact on semi-natural habitats. The QDM&CG is fully committed to the long term conservation of a substantial population of red deer on the Quantocks. However, its members [which include individual Quantock landholders, as well as Natural England, Friends of Quantocks, Forestry Commission, National Trust, DEFRA, British Deer Society, The Quantock Staghounds, The Deer Initiative, BASC, and the Quantock AONB Service] have jointly reached the conclusion that concerns about damage to farmland, forestry, and woodland biodiversity make the current size of deer populations unsustainable in the longer term. The need to reduce winter grazing levels of both deer and sheep is particularly pertinent for conservation of the ancient semi-natural oak woods within the Quantock Hills, which are designated as a SAC (Special Area of Conservation) of international importance, but are considered by Natural England to be in unfavourable condition at least partly due to overgrazing. The Group have therefore asked local landholders to liaise in attempts at a gradual reduction of the population over the coming five years, and then retain a population nearer 500 head. To accomplish this annual culls will need to be around 25% higher than they have been in recent years. In other words, while recent culls estimated at around 250 head have helped to hold spring counts at around 800 head, an extra 50 to 100 mature females will need to be culled annually to initiate a more significant reduction also in the breeding herd.
The purpose of the collaborative cull proposed for the end of November is NOT as reported in the press an attempt to achieve the whole annual cull in a single day. Rather – the aims are firstly to provide a day when, by virtue of most local deer managers being available in their own usual management areas their combined culling is likely to be more efficient overall – because if a deer does not provide a safe shot on one holding, it may nevertheless well do so if it moves onto a neighbours land; and secondly to enable provision of practical assistance for landholders if required through loan of equipment such as mobile high seats and/or with the sale and collection of venison. The focus for the collaborative day is purely on achieving a higher cull of hinds NOT of stags, and is planned to be addition not a replacement of other culling activity throughout the season. This approach has been applied successfully with the backing of The Deer Initiative in other parts of England, and only if feedback from local landowners suggests it has also been helpful here will consideration be given to organising further similar days in the future.
Whilst the optimum deer population level for the Quantocks remains debatable and will always require compromises between landholders and other interest groups, in the absence of any natural predators of deer direct management intervention does become inevitable at some point. When deer become so abundant that the majority rather than minority of landowners regard them as excessive, standards of control also tend to decline, including resort by some to night shooting and other illegal practices. Therefore as a biologist and wildlife enthusiast with a lifelong passion for deer, but no interest at all in hunting or shooting game, I nevertheless have no problem in accepting the need for culling as one part of deer management. I also have no reservation in recommending that more people should eat venison, which is a high quality meat usually reared far more humanely than the 20 million or more poultry that will be slaughtered on masse next month in the name of Christmas. The more important issue is that deer culls should be undertaken in a humane, professional and highly selective manner and that a significant and healthy population is retained which remains valued as an asset rather than perceived as a pest by the majority of landholders.
Further information about the history, behaviour and ecology of deer on the Quantock Hills, and the policies of the QDM&CG are available in a free colour booklet which can be requested from the Quantock AONB office (01278 845732) and is also available for download in the ‘publications’ section at their web-site
Or, here is a direct link to
The Quantock Deer Management & Conservation Group booklet (pdf)
