Sustainable culling of deer
Jon Snowdon addresses sustainable culling and how this affects woodland management
There are always a number of bucks that are still in velvet at the start of the roebuck season on 1 April. This more often than not starts a debate within the deer management community as to whether shooting a roebuck still in velvet is the ‘done thing’. There are some pretty trenchant views about this out there.
In Scotland, there is also the debate about increasing the length of the season for male deer. Some people have suggested that male deer should not have a close season at all. Personally, I cannot fathom the reason for the differing seasons between Scotland, compared to England and Wales. There is a good reason for the female close season, however, and that is on welfare grounds.
I would hope that no one would be happy to shoot females when they have newly born young by their sides, which are reliant on them for survival.
Open season
So, what about the male deer open season? Why is it there? The male deer seasons are linked to antler growth. There are no welfare grounds as far as the male deer statutory open season is concerned. If you take a look at the seasons, male deer seasons are set at around the time when the big lads are out of velvet and in what is called hard horn. It would, therefore, be easy to conclude that a male open season would be all about trophy heads. We all know the impassioned debate
going on about trophy hunting, which I will leave for another time. I would say, however, that there is considerable misunderstanding in some quarters, among those who do not have the slightest knowledge of its legitimate place in the management of any animals, let alone deer. It is habitat loss, caused by us, that endangers the diversity of species throughout the world, not trophy hunting. It is an emotive term, which produces an emotive response.
“It makes sense to leave the promising bucks to mature and spread their genes”
Anyway… Male deer have nothing to do with the young, they simply spread their genes in one big party only to clear off and leave all of the mentoring and nurturing to the females. Sound familiar? Female deer nurture the young for some considerable time, especially the herd deer. Herd deer males can be with the female for as long as two years before they wander off to join the older boys in their separate sex herds.
So, should we shoot male deer in velvet? I am sorry to disappoint some of you out there, many who are good friends of mine, but the answer is yes, of course we should. If we don’t, the cull is simply unachievable in the time given to control the population and that is what it is all about. We manage the deer so that their population is sustainably controlled for the good of the deer, the habitat they live in and that we also all enjoy.
Please do not think I am saying that whatever turns up in velvet should be shot. I am not. All of us who manage deer responsibly are selective. It makes sense to leave the promising bucks to mature and spread their genes. Managing our deer ethically and responsibly doesn’t mean that every six-pointer should be left out of the cull plan; often six-pointers are not of the overall quality to keep, while others will be. The aim is to have a balanced population consisting of healthy examples that are representative of the species.
Monitoring
I have mentioned sustainability. The Greenlee Deer Management group has just had meetings with foresters and been out in the field taking a look at the aims for future decades. Forestry is a longterm business, especially our deciduous woodland. Monitoring the habitat is the key to deer management. It is not about numbers but what effect the deer population is having on the habitat and how that affects the results we want.
Roe deer do fray the bark off saplings but are selective. They do this for a number of reasons. Pleasure, for starters. Imagine you have a wound that scabs over. You will all have experienced the pleasure in giving that itch a scratch. I remember having a plaster taken off my broken leg some years ago and the sheer delight of being able to scratch it.
The velvet that covers the growth of antlers is alive; blood is flowing between the velvet and the sensitive growing antler.
When the antler gets to the point where growth is complete, then the velvet dies. Again, I imagine this is just like an itch that you can’t quite get to. A roe deer will choose to rub its antlers on a thin, flexible sapling to remove the velvet and get right into those awkward, difficult to reach spots.
Territorial
Fraying is also a territorial action; the buck has scent glands below his eye and between his cleaves. He frays and scrapes the ground to leave his unique warning to other bucks that he is one in charge.
My experience with roe deer fraying is that it is not a big problem for the forester, unless the deer population is out of kilter. If that is the case, too many bucks vying for dominance can be a big problem.
With the larger herd deer such as red, fraying can have a serious and damaging effect on the whole plantation. For a start, there will be more of them together and they are big beggars; even mature trees can be killed by the bark being stripped. Any tree, whether mature or sapling, that is ring barked will die.
The solution? Manage numbers sustainably, backed up by habitat science.