DEER CULL CALL
Plea to let amateurs hunt on state-owned property
AMATEUR hunters should be allowed to shoot deer on public land as part of an annual cull, say experts.
They want to establish more opportunities for trained stalkers to manage the animals on stateowned land in their area.
The plans come from a partnership of 11 groups involved in deer management.
It’s been said that despite Scotland’s deer population being about a million, many licensed stalkers struggle to access hunting opportunities in their area.
The group claim this is because culls on state property are carried out by contractors, hired at significant cost to the taxpayer.
Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS), which manages nearly 10 per cent of the country’s land mass, paid £10.5million on deer contracts in 2019.
Members of the partnership, which is being led by the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC), believe this is “needlessly expensive”.
They said there are lots of local people who would be keen to take part in deer management. There are 26,300 firearm certificate holders in Scotland, many of whom may already be involved in deer stalking.
But the number of stalkers involved in deer management at a local level is much lower, with many paying to shoot on sporting estates instead.
A considerable impact could be made if they were given the chance to hunt deer locally, says the partnership.
Ross Ewing, of BASC, said: “We must find more economic, sustainable and localised means of controlling Scotland’s deer.
“Community integrated deer management will capitalise on our free resource of trained recreational deer stalkers.”
FLS said it would be keen to consider proposals that could assist proactive deer management.