750,000 deer to be culled - thanks bunny huggers!

[British Red]

*Its not the eating of horse that irritates me, its the fact that one of my brothers has to jump through hoops and have bits of paper for every stage of his cattle from birth to slaughter then its totally blown out of the water and the bits of paper (and associated costs) are ignored when Findus/Tesco and Co give us horsemeat with no accompanying paperwork.

Same problem - stupid regulations that don't work. All this food saftey regulation - and the reality is there is food being sold of the wrong species!

Its everywhere now. Its not just the game handling regulations, but the process of firearms licensing application, land certification for the calbre etc. We have made it harder and harder for people to supply game products.

Its not just game. I raise my own veg. To do this I save and produce my own open pollinated seed. Sometimes I produce an excess. People would like to buy some. Can I sell it to them? Oh no. That would be against the law

Do consult the 77 pages of regulations on me charging someone a couple of quid for my excess parsnip seed

http://www.fera.defra.gov.uk/plants/seeds/seedCertification/documents/guideVegSeeds02.pdf

I also make my own soap. People here have asked me if they can buy a few bars when I make things like pine tar soap.

Now the outline rules on me doing this span a mere 186 pages

http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file45185.pdf

It would cost me many hundreds of pounds per recipe to produce the PIFs, MSDS, safety inspections etc. to do this

As for the deer, well we used to manage to control the deer population, now we don't. Wild deer are not like cattle, they aren't in huge herds in one place. Others can disagree with me, thats okay, but on a day by day basis I see the mountains of paperwork and obstacles we now place in the way of people who want to do things on a small scale. People say they don't want huge "mega industries" and "factory farms" - but the regulation make it impossible for small, diverse businesses to even understand the regulations let alone follow them. So at best people in a small business specialise in one item - not the diverse businesses we used to have with a farm knocking out a cream tea here, a game pie there.

I have said it before and I'll say it again - we need less law and less regulation in this country.

 

[Angus Og]

Just finished a great venison curry

 

[stuey]

I'd still like to see some statistics about when the deer population expanded more rapidly than before,

My personal opinion....

I don't think it has.
I think the population has been steadily increasing for tens of years. Look at the data Robin posted... A steady increase year on year.
Many factors have combined which I have mentioned earlier in the thread which have contributed to the steady increase.

The UEA research which the media ran with earlier this week used extrapolated census counts which it based on areas with a high concentration of deer. Arne : Owned by RSPB and NT minimal deer management if any. Ashdown : Owned by Forestry Commission understaffed minimal deer management. Thetford : Owned by the FC again, understaffed and minimal deer management.
These three areas are known by local stalkers to have high populations of deer which are not being managed effectively.
Its unfortunate that the research included these areas in their study as it may well give an incorrectly high figure for the national population.

Sent from my BlackBerry 9900 using Tapatalk

 

[Huon]

Same problem - stupid regulations that don't work. All this food saftey regulation - and the reality is there is food being sold of the wrong species!

Its everywhere now. Its not just the game handling regulations, but the process of firearms licensing application, land certification for the calbre etc. We have made it harder and harder for people to supply game products.

Its not just game. I raise my own veg. To do this I save and produce my own open pollinated seed. Sometimes I produce an excess. People would like to buy some. Can I sell it to them? Oh no. That would be against the law

Do consult the 77 pages of regulations on me charging someone a couple of quid for my excess parsnip seed

http://www.fera.defra.gov.uk/plants/seeds/seedCertification/documents/guideVegSeeds02.pdf

I also make my own soap. People here have asked me if they can buy a few bars when I make things like pine tar soap.

Now the outline rules on me doing this span a mere 186 pages

http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file45185.pdf

It would cost me many hundreds of pounds per recipe to produce the PIFs, MSDS, safety inspections etc. to do this

As for the deer, well we used to manage to control the deer population, now we don't. Wild deer are not like cattle, they aren't in huge herds in one place. Others can disagree with me, thats okay, but on a day by day basis I see the mountains of paperwork and obstacles we now place in the way of people who want to do things on a small scale. People say they don't want huge "mega industries" and "factory farms" - but the regulation make it impossible for small, diverse businesses to even understand the regulations let alone follow them. So at best people in a small business specialise in one item - not the diverse businesses we used to have with a farm knocking out a cream tea here, a game pie there.

I have said it before and I'll say it again - we need less law and less regulation in this country.

I know exactly what you mean BR. A little story for you...

About 50 miles off the coast of NZ out from Auckland harbour is a place called Great Barrier Island. It is an interesting place - a little like going back to the NZ of the 50s. I've never lived there but I've visited off and on for many years.

When I first started going there all of the local B&Bs, restaurants, cafes and what have you used to sell locally caught fish. Nothing complicated about getting the fish. They were caught and landed locally and would often find their way onto the table the same day. If you were staying in a hotel there (hotel makes the place sound far grander than it is) you could catch the fish yourself, gut it, hand it over to the kitchen and have it served to you or dinner.

The last time I visited all of that had changed. Fish couldn't be caught and sold locally but had to be taken back to the mainland and then shipped out again. If any hotel owner had dared to serve something caught by a guest they'd probably be put out of business. Basically the regulations had changed.

I'm sure whatever group was behind the change meant well but I doubt that any risks were cut by introducing an additional delay into the process of getting fish from the water onto the table.

Regulations make sense to a point but they can be taken too far and made too complex. Common sense has to come into play at some point.

 

[boatman]

With all these regulations, Women's Institute Markets, Farmer's markets and roadside sales must be a chimera.

 

[21st century pict]

Must be a East Anglia thing. I live in the NE of Scotland and in no way are deer in any where near “epidemic numbers” up here ,I consider myself lucky if I even see a red, and on a good day out I’m lucky if I see 3 or 4 Roe at most. Just had a look at the forestry commission figures and they can only estimate the numbers of Fallow in the tens of thousands ,That’s hardly an accurate estimate. You can feed the “townies” as much ****e as you want but Dr Dolmans Deer harvest and Deer Initiative just reeks of cash to me.
“ The researchers drove more than 1,140 miles at night using thermal imaging cameras to spot deer and provide an accurate estimate of their true numbers.”
That must have been one hell of a good nights lamping. Statistics ,statistics , statistics.

If there must cull start with the non native animals first.

 

[Doc]

There are two situations here: lowland roe/fallow and highland red deer.

Counting deer is not an exact science and I read an article in 'Deer' comparing different census methods (counting droppings, helicopters, traditional head counting etc) and there was a variation in estimates. Nevertheless, red deer numbers are at an all time high since the 60s, and there is ecological harm resulting (such as preventing the regeneration of native woodlands).

It's a good question as to why. The lack of large predators is one issue, but they weren't here in the 60s either.

Much of the highlands is owned by just a few hundred people, and the estates do derive a lot of their income from stalking. People will pay £400 for a day at the stags. But to control numbers you need to cull hinds, which is less attractive to recreational stalkers - there is no trophy, and it's not done in summer. Hind stalking is therefore often done by the estate's professional stalker. It's very labour intensive.

Recently there has been a big argument between the John Muir Trust (who want a large cull to allow native woodland to regenerate, without the use of capercaillie-killing fences) and local sporting estates (who fear a loss of revenue).

Just like ecology, everything is connected.

For my part, I think the red deer numbers are unnaturally high and the JMT have a strong argument. Perhaps it would be better if recreational stalkers wanted to shoot hinds. I would think more of a recreational stalker for culling hinds - it shows someone is more interested in conservation than trophies, and is prepared to do the job in foul weather.

 

[Stringmaker]

It does seem to be a regional problem.

I live in East Anglia near the North Sea and there is a big problem with them destroying crops here.

Red is right on the money of course when he made the point about local herd management effectively being stopped being behind the explosion in numbers.

 

[robin wood]

Red is right on the money of course when he made the point about local herd management effectively being stopped being behind the explosion in numbers.

And are you going to back that up with any attempt at statistical or other evidence or do we supposed to just take it as being obvious? Can you for instance show me when this supposed sudden explosion in numbers occurred and that it correlates with a reduction in local culling? all the evidence I have seen has been for a long term steady increase since long before any of the changes that folk are discussing.

 

[ged]

We should re-introduce the wolves. okenest:

 

[MartinK9]

We should re-introduce the wolves. okenest:

Nah, a struggling Championship Team, they need to concentrate on football. No time for Hunting.

 

[21st century pict]

I must agree with Robin Wood, East Anglia may possibly be representative of the neighbouring counties but to say its representative of hole country, no chance, way too many variables.

 

[boatman]

To see what the absence of regulation meant look up food adulteration in Victorian times. How do you fancy ground up bones in bread? Some of these bones might well have come from graves cleared to make way for urban railway development.