Its raining Deer...

[Tengu]

https://www.countryfile.com/wildlife/deer-culling-in-britain-facts-and-statistics/

I thought this a bit of a non story but I was wondering how do they calculate the numbers a thousand years ago?

There were areas in which deer must have been naturaly not feasible to hunt; Cornwall has many deer parks.

 

[Janne]

they do not per se, but what is written down in those days indicate that they were very rare. Applies to most larger huntable/eatable animals all through Europe.
Remember the countryside ( UK, Europe) had far less forests than now.
Much more wetlands though.
Agriculture was inefficient and you needed a very large area per person to produce food.

The Black Death made life a bit easier, both for the surviving humans and wildlife.

Toddy is the expert here though!

 

[santaman2000]

They just need to refine the terminology a bit. Rather than a “culling,” they need a robust “harvest” on a regular basis.

 

[Janne]

Harvest implies that you eat Bambi.

Lots of modern people can not stand that thought.

You should have seen the reaction when I told the assistants at my workplace in UK that we eat Rudolf in Scandinavia.....

 

[santaman2000]

Harvest implies that you eat Bambi.

Lots of modern people can not stand that thought.

You should have seen the reaction when I told the assistants at my workplace in UK that we eat Rudolf in Scandinavia.....

Eat it. Tan the hide. Sell it. Feed it to the dogs. Grind it for fertilizer. All are acceptable uses.

 

[Toddy]

Eat it. Tan the hide. Sell it. Feed it to the dogs. Grind it for fertilizer. All are acceptable uses.

If you can get to them

I know ghillies, and I know hunters, and I know beaters, and they all complain at times about the long heft out with the carcase. Thing is that our country is very up and down, we don't really do much flat, and much of the up is rather inaccessible, and the deer make good use of it. Most of the older shoots used to take in garrons (hardy hill ponies) to help, but who has garrons nowadays ? so few folks keep horses at all.

They're not supposed to shoot them and just leave them on the hillsides, they're supposed to retrieve (partly to make sure the beast is decently dead) and everything is governed by 'sporting' laws, etc.,
Imagine dragging that carcase out by manpower....ask Neil or Mirage about just how much effort that is.

I know a landowner who was delighted to let an Italian shoot have at it in his estate for a week. He thought they'd redd out the deer that were cropping a new plantation. Nope. Instead they shot every wee bird in the place, from the robins to the blackbirds
Cultural differences abound.

While we still had wolves running free in the UK we still had much of the island forested. Good arable land was usually along river valleys, water meadows and the like. In came the Industrial Revolution and down came the forests,
Now we're trying to re-establish them where we can, but apart from folks who don't actually live on the land, most aren't terribly keen to see wolf packs back here.
We live on islands, busy islands, and predators are always going to be on a sticky wicket here.

No doubting it though, there are too many deer. I live in what is now suburbia, but we have a lot of woodlands around us still, and a lot of leafy paths, and we have a problem with deer. Never mind the greenfly munching your garden, the deer are happily working their way around, and the reality of traffic issues leaves horrified children and parents as something they see as cute is shattered into a gory mess. Two fawns and a doe last year at the end of the street, lot of tears and upset.
In a society that buys it's meat mostly from the supermarket now, deer aren't seen as food.
If put into packets and sold like beef though, it still doesn't sell very well I'm told. Folks think it'll taste weird, while we know the reality is that gamey is just old meat hung too long and that good fresh venison is just tasty meat (I have friends who supply my freezer for my husband)

How do they know the numbers ? I haven't a clue
I know that medieval records are not terribly reliable as an estimate outside of their own area. I know that driven hunts were often total overkill though, but the nobility weren't really much on restraint, just showing off, and rules claiming and enforcing hunting areas as no-go for everyone else.....especially after Rufus.

 

[santaman2000]

We have most of those same problems here too Toddy. Although Florida is flat The mountain west isn’t. Horsenack hunts there are the normal for guided hunts and for a lot of locals.

Here’s a link to me such outfitter (guide service) No affiliation on my part, just the first link I found http://www.co-outfitters.com/wilderness-pack-in-hunts/ This particular one takes the horses out once your pack train reaches camp though. That’s not normal.

All that said, “gamey” taste really has nothing to do with how long meat’s been hanging. It has everything to do with what the animal’s diet was in the weeks before being killed. Y’all like grass fed beef. We like “finished” (grain fed) beef. Both are consistent and neither includes the roughage deer consume. The best deer I’ve eaten was killed during the mast season when they were well fed on acorns and hickory nuts. The worst was early in the season when they were still feeding on green leaves.

 

[Robson Valley]

Less than 3% of British Columbia is flat. It is bigger than the UK, Japan & New Zealand, all rolled together.
Horsepower is is and always has been the transport for the guides and outfitters, as well as the locals.
Autumn cattle drives down out of the high mountain pastures still needs everybody on working horses.

This outfit is friends of mine. I'm even on the home page. Click on the Home Page to see a gallery.
The cats are just enormous with 10,000 deer to eat. Horses are a must to go anywhere.
http://www.kettleriverguides.com/

 

[Toddy]

We have most of those same problems here too Toddy. Although Florida is flat The mountain west isn’t. Horsenack hunts there are the normal for guided hunts and for a lot of locals.

Here’s a link to me such outfitter (guide service) No affiliation on my part, just the first link I found http://www.co-outfitters.com/wilderness-pack-in-hunts/ This particular one takes the horses out once your pack train reaches camp though. That’s not normal.

All that said, “gamey” taste really has nothing to do with how long meat’s been hanging. It has everything to do with what the animal’s diet was in the weeks before being killed. Y’all like grass fed beef. We like “finished” (grain fed) beef. Both are consistent and neither includes the roughage deer consume. The best deer I’ve eaten was killed during the mast season when they were well fed on acorns and hickory nuts. The worst was early in the season when they were still feeding on green leaves.

Trust me, the gamey taste is hanging too long and not chilled properly. Pheasants used to be hung until the maggots ate through the neck. It used to take time to get the beasts off the hills, down to the game dealers and exported south, and in pre-refridgeration times, the meat developed a certain 'tang'. That's still how most folks, who have never eaten venison, think of it, because that's what they're told.
The feeding is pretty generic if seasonal. I believe that only the muntjac can be shot year round though.

Horseback hunting isn't a thing here now. It became a 'sport' and fox and hounds. Folks either walk in or they don't go. Rarely do they go very far in by landrover or the like, too much water and boggy bits.
You're not allowed to hunt with dogs unless it's a vermin species like rats.

Folks don't camp out to hunt either, they go back to the lodge, etc., roughing it through the day is one thing, but the guns socialise in the evening. It's a 'sport'.
It's also a sport that requires a certain 'payload' and most folks in the UK do not have guns, most folks don't hunt.

So, we have too many deer.

 

[Janne]

A Defender 110 pickup is made for several deer carcasses!
With the correct tyres and pressure, very little damage to earth.

Or an all terrain small thingie, with a trailer.

Do they still do the blood ritual in Scotland, when you kill your first deer?

Deer tastes lovely, if matured in a cold room/barn for a week. +3C or so. Any hotter and you need to shorted the days.

Deer of all versions, reindeer, moose, lovely, lovely, lovely!

 

[Toddy]

Less than 3% of British Columbia is flat. It is bigger than the UK, Japan & New Zealand, all rolled together.
Horsepower is is and always has been the transport for the guides and outfitters, as well as the locals.
Autumn cattle drives down out of the high mountain pastures still needs everybody on working horses.
...

Here we just have shepherds and collies and quads.

 

[Janne]

Quads. That is the name.

Lamb is boring. Mutton better. But so difficult to get!
In UK I had an 'arrangement' with a farmer that had sheep.
Here I buy NZ hogget.

In the old days, much of the wild animals were reserved for the aristocracy. The poor, meat hungry peasants just hunted illegally.
No season, no specific animals like today.

 

[Toddy]

Yeah, and the right of heritable jurisprudence was still extant too.
Poaching was a death sentence for many, now the bailiff's can take your gear and the vehicle that took you to the site too, but not your life.
We're civilised now

 

[Toddy]

A Defender 110 pickup is made for several deer carcasses!
With the correct tyres and pressure, very little damage to earth.

Or an all terrain small thingie, with a trailer.

Do they still do the blood ritual in Scotland, when you kill your first deer?

Deer tastes lovely, if matured in a cold room/barn for a week. +3C or so. Any hotter and you need to shorted the days.

Deer of all versions, reindeer, moose, lovely, lovely, lovely!

It's often boggy, and landrovers sink quite effectively. Burns are often steep sided and landrovers get stuck, so do quads, though they're most likely to overturn rather than get stuck.
Even on the top of the hills it's sploonging wet.

 

[Janne]

Scotland sounds like a lot of fun in the rainy winter!!!


What we used to do (In Sweden) when I was young and hunted, we divided the animal in 'carry portions' and carried them out on back pack frames we added a lower tubular shelf on, in style of the infamous LK 35 and LK 70

If the shooter wanted his/her trophy, it was his/her responsibility to carry it out in addition to the meat.
Tradition.

But we did help.
I certainly hope nobody leaves the carcasses.
Crime. Against the animal.

Kill only if you eat it, if you do not want to eat it, watch and observe only!

 

[petrochemicals]

Trust me, the gamey taste is hanging too long and not chilled properly. Pheasants used to be hung until the maggots ate through the neck. It used to take time to get the beasts off the hills, down to the game dealers and exported south, and in pre-refridgeration times, the meat developed a certain 'tang'. That's still how most folks, who have never eaten venison, think of it, because that's what they're told.
The feeding is pretty generic if seasonal. I believe that only the muntjac can be shot year round though.

Horseback hunting isn't a thing here now. It became a 'sport' and fox and hounds. Folks either walk in or they don't go. Rarely do they go very far in by landrover or the like, too much water and boggy bits.
You're not allowed to hunt with dogs unless it's a vermin species like rats.

Folks don't camp out to hunt either, they go back to the lodge, etc., roughing it through the day is one thing, but the guns socialise in the evening. It's a 'sport'.
It's also a sport that requires a certain 'payload' and most folks in the UK do not have guns, most folks don't hunt.

So, we have too many deer.

Does not the adrenaline of an unclean kill give the meat a tang too, as well as if the carcass is not bled professionally ?

 

[Toddy]

I don't know. I know that usually it's gralloched pretty much where it falls though, so that clears out the gut (and a lot of the weight)

I think we need someone among those who actually stalks to join the thread.

M

 

[Robson Valley]

"Bleeding" won't do much at all when the heart is stopped. Can't get blood out of a stone.

The single prime factor, regardless of environmental temperature and shooting conditions,
(Texas A&M University Dept of Food Science research, about 1980 or so)
is to open and field dress the animal or bird to chill the meat as rapidly as possible.

So you POP! the critter and field dress it. Sloppy shooters should stay home.
Do not use any water at all until the animal is skinned and ready to hang for a few days.
Bunches of dry grasses to wipe out pooled hemmoragic blood are OK.
A battery-powered reciprocating SawzAll is ideal to quarter a carcass in just a couple of minutes.
Not at all messy like a small chainsaw running on corn oil.

I have eaten 6-7 bison over the past 16 years. Killed and field dressed very quickly.
I expected the quarters to be hung at 4*C for no more than 3-4 days ( too much dehydration).
The butcher shops here are fully equipped to deal with big game. Cut-it-with-a-fork tender.

 

[Toddy]

Scotland sounds like a lot of fun in the rainy winter!!!


Kill only if you eat it, if you do not want to eat it, watch and observe only!

Scotland's a lot of fun in any weather
Just that damp is our world, iimmc.

Thing with the kill only if you eat it though is that we now have far too many deer, and since we took out the top predator, and putting them back in sufficient numbers to reduce the herds effectively is unfeasible, it's up to us.
So, there are culls, and not all of the meat is eaten.

M

 

[Janne]

Pity. The meat is very healthy, and a diet food when boiled ( think stew).
Old peoples homes could have it.

I give away my excess fish catch to the local old peoples home where I go in Norway.
Cleaned and filleted.

It is weird how nature changes. When I was young in Sweden, around 45 years ago, dad and me travelled to see an avian predator. Went to Northern Norway to see an Eagle.
To bag one deer per season was happiness you talked about. Moose - maybe one per 'shooting team'.

Today, the skies are full, the forests are full.