National Deer Cull

[Aelfred]

I just came across an article on BBC news with DEFRA proposing a programme to control national deer populations:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4133919.stm

and the DEFRA press release:

http://www.defra.gov.uk/news/latest/2004/wildlife-041231.htm

Has anybody got any further information on it? Or any thoughts on whether a programme is necessary? Or what we could do with all these carcasses instead of sending them to an incinerator as I expect more than a few will be?

 

[arctic hobo]

Tell you what - don't kill them, put them in trucks and bring them down here... ages since I saw deer round here - I'm rather partial to a bit of deer hunting, though I've never done it in the UK.

 

[Neil1]

AH, you ain't lookin in the right places (see PM).
Neil

 

[tomtom]

not many round me.. its all to fenced off round here i think.. i have seen them up on the moors though!

 

[Buckshot]

DEFRA have been talking about this for years - seems they might actually do something about it now. - perhaps.

I'm looking for some extra ground to stalk over if anyone knows of anything in my area

Cheers

Mark

 

[jem seeley]

Loads of deer here in Suffolk! I have at least 1 muntjac in the garden on a daily basis. Everywhere I go around here I always see deer,mostly roe,muntjac and reds but occassionally fallow. I've had some magical encounters and have managed to get very close not necessarily because of any special tracking skill on my part just that I've been in the right place at the right time...and managed to be very still ( actually I've found that swaying slightly works pretty well on a windy day- god knows what this looks like to anyone watching though !!)
If you look carefully at nearly any woodland in an area with a fair amount of deer you can see a quite distinct browse line. Saplings,shrubs,ground flora and trees all munched up to the height a deer can reach. With numbers of deer at an all time high this is bad news for woodland. Our local wildlife trust already has a programme of deer control in its woods but I guess these things don't tend to work unless they are coordinated.
I've mixed feelings about this one. I see the need for control but I just love seeing deer in the wild.
If more deer are to be culled we should at least be eating them. I've been buying venison from a local dealer( The Wild Meat Company ) but I think many people are very wary of anything out of the ordinary. I've presently got a nice supply of venison pluck in the freezer. Yummy.

 

[bambodoggy]

Too many deer in the UK......? ? ? ? ? Maybe this is because we shot every preditor (except humans) that these animals had......funny old world....we shoot the wolves etc and then because there's too many deer we now have to shoot them too!

Can't we just let a few wolves loose again? ? ?

Aren't there supposed to be mythic wild big cats all over the country eating these deer? ? ? ):

 

[tomtom]

yeh there are bam, not enough though, i feel it only fair that we release a few more big predators to balance things out though!

 

[NickBristol]

The deer population has defintely taken a battering round my way recently - seen several carcasses by the sides of the road and know two people who've had a car-vs-deer encounter (deer lost both times) in the last month. Not much fun for anyone involved.

 

[bambodoggy]

This might sound morbid and horrid but I'm always on the lookout for fresh road kill dear.....it's hard to shoot in Surrey unless you have lots of money so getting hold of deer to skin, eat, use for projects etc is very hard.....road kill is one of the few legal ways I can do it.....

My wife doesn't know they are road kill......wonder where she thinks they come from!!!! lol

I can't understand anybody leaving bits behind.....after all if the deer has recked the front of your car (and they can make a terrible mess of metalwork, lights etc) then you might as well get something good out of it..... I was going to say jokingly that they are also pre-tenderised but I think that's in too bad taste!

 

[tenbears10]

I think it is illegal to collect a deer which you run over. The next person on the road can pick it up but not the person who kills it. I think this is to stop people doing it on purpose. I know what you are saying about damaging the car but some people are daft enough to run a deer over so they can take it home.

Is the cull going to be done by people working for defra or will they just employ stalkers on a part time basis?

 

[bambodoggy]

I seem to think you are right about road kill collection (it's in the Deer Act I believe).....I haven't hit one but have seen it done and it trashed a Vaxhaul Cavalier....
I think it'd be quite hard to get the deer to cross just at the right time to hit them on purpose though! ):

As I said....I just drive about round here with one eye on the road keeping a look out for anything freshly dead.....then I stop and pick it up.....all perfectly legal and above board

 

[tenbears10]

I think it'd be quite hard to get the deer to cross just at the right time to hit them on purpose though! ):

I was thinking the swerve method or get them with the door on the way past

Please don't think I was including you in the people trying to kill deer with their car.

There was a long discussion about this on rivercottage.net forum. It got quite heated in the end. People were saying you should not collect road kill because the animal could be diseased or poisoned or something and you might not know.

Sounds sensible to me if it is fresh then waste not want not.

Bill

 

[bambodoggy]

No worries Bill....I was just pulling your leg about getting them to line up for the drive by!!!! ):

All fair points about poison etc but hey....just means there's more for me to pick up! ):

And there must be ways to tell if things aren't as they should be.....smell is always a good one! But if the dear has been run over or shot then it could still be poisoned or deseased surely....it just happened to not know it's green cross code too!!!!! I always have a little looksy at the liver before I eat things anyway....

 

[RJP]

Just be a little bit careful with road kill venison. Some deer aren't killed by the initial impact and a vet is called who may put it to sleep with injected barbiturates. You don't want to be eating one of these!!

RJP

 

[tenbears10]

Just be a little bit careful with road kill venison. Some deer aren't killed by the initial impact and a vet is called who may put it to sleep with injected barbiturates. You don't want to be eating one of these!!

RJP

Fair point RJP but most (all??) vets would take the carcas away if they had put it down. They would not be allowed to leave it on the road.

 

[RobertsonPau]

Just my two penneth on road kills. The vet may well destroy the animal, but it is the highways deptartment of the local authority who would be responsible for removing the carcass. If it was a domestic or agricultural animal it would be the owners responsibility. I happen to deal with this as part of my current job.

 

[tenbears10]

Just my two penneth on road kills. The vet may well destroy the animal, but it is the highways deptartment of the local authority who would be responsible for removing the carcass. If it was a domestic or agricultural animal it would be the owners responsibility. I happen to deal with this as part of my current job.

Checked with my wife (who is a vet) she said it would be very unproffessional to dispatch an animal and leave it on the road. Shooting rather than lethal injection would mean it was safe to leave lying around but you would still remove it.

I can't speak for every vet obviously but unless someone from the local authority was there ready to remove the carcass then the vet would take it with them.

Bill

 

[Emma]

Just to counter that...
I have a good friend who has put down a horse that was hit by a car outside his work - he wasn't a vet, but owing to his job he had the drugs needed. They couldn't actually remove the horse. I'm not sure what happened to it after that. But there is still a chance that someone has put an animal down with poisons and had to leave it where it is... rare though that may be.

 

[RobertsonPau]

Just to shed a little more light on my original post. If the animal has been hit by a car the motorist normally contacts the local police (this is my connection in the process), who would then attend, and then liase with vets and highways. I realise that vets would normally try and remove a carcass if that was the only option, but the police would normally request highways to wash the road surface down to remove 'residue'. I wasn't suggesting that vets would in anyway act unprofessionally or inconsiderately.

The area of the UK I'm in gets a lot of road kills, as it is fairly rural and remote, and we are always dealling with them. But I never get the chance to get to them first, before they're filled with drugs and removed, I've had the odd pheasant but they usually end up very flat very quickly.

As a bit of an aside, you should see the look on a groups face when you tell them it'll be pizza for tea while scraping a hedgehog of the road.):

Paul