Tasks in hand
In Northumberland, despite everything, we have managed to carry out some of the doe cull and better than we expected. And now we are able to carry out the deer management on the estates we work. Before we started, we discussed which deer to put on the list. A colleague asked about bucks in velvet being despatched. My answer was ‘yes’. I know there is debate about this but our job is to control the deer population and, in turn, protect the woodland habitat, as well as preventing deer from competing with farm stock. Some of the young deer in velvet have to be removed. If we don’t we will not catch up with them once they get chased around by the older boys running up to the rut. Once that has ended they will return from the boundaries, increasing the damage.
Size of heads was also mentioned. We have always tended to leave a number of large mature bucks and some that show promise; it is part of our estate planning. However, I changed the usual criteria. This ground has not been controlled to any real extent for nearly five years. If you consider that bucks born in 2016 are now in their fifth year, imagine what that population is. There are bucks that are approaching middle age. Some will be past that. It is time to relax our normal procedure and say any buck seen should be taken. My colleagues are experienced and will recognise bucks that they feel should be left. But whereas we would have left some due to the population being controlled, this is not an option this year. The population is out of control and because of that we need to bring it back. This is for the benefit of the deer population as a whole as the deer manager’s effort protects the well-being of the native deer population, as well as the habitat. Deer managers have to look at their ground with an open mind and they must not get trapped into a ‘what we always do’ frame of mind.