SEEING THE WOOD FOR THE TREES

In the various articles trying to justify shooting almost every deer on the planet, with fairly regular references to the myth of climate change and trees for carbon, can be found observations such as “hottest summer since 1540” and “first 40°C for 350 years”. What was the cause then? Jet engines? Diesel cars? I think not.

But I digress. It galls me to read in this magazine about so-called deer managers and stalkers claiming that without their efforts there would be no trees to capture all the carbon that apparently needs to be caught. I find it amazing that if you look around our green and pleasant little island, there are thousands of acres of ancient woodland — much of it many hundreds of years old — that managed to grow without being destroyed by herds of marauding deer.

The Editor even lauds a keeper for shooting 150 a year (I pay for my own rounds), not noticing his back pocket bulging from the thousands of pounds in cash from the sales.

I live and farm beside Rockingham Forest and like seeing deer about. Once upon a time, you could go up the farm almost any time of day and see a few in one field or another,

Reader Will Fenn believes there is a misconception that deer numbers are high right across the country