Deer out of control
They are our largest land mammals and for many visitors the sight of their herds roaming the hills is a holiday highlight.
They have been the principal quarry for countless generations of hunters and in more recent times they have become the most desirable targets for affluent, modern, gun-toting hunters.
Red deer are as synonymous with the Highlands as golden eagles and the uisge-beatha.
Our most ancient ancestors pursued herds of red deer for meat but they also put the antlers of the stags to good use as tools. The first huntergatherer migrants, who arrived here in dug-out canoes and sailed up the sea loch that is now the Forth valley, clearly utilised deer antlers as tools. Nineteenth-century excavations of peat revealed the skeleton of a whale, which had presumably become stranded and whose carcass those nomadic people had butchered with the help of tools fashioned from red deer antlers.
The Stuart kings and queens of Scotland had a burning enthusiasm for the chase and frequently travelled west of their base at Stirling to pursue red deer through the deer forests of the Highland Edge. More recently, Queen Victoria’s consort Prince Albert inspired the kind of deer stalking that has become one of the major upland land uses over the past 150 and the creation of a new kind of deer forest which, curiously, is bereft of trees.
The universal view is that red deer are residents of the treeless uplands, creatures destined to roam the high, rugged landscapes of Highland Scotland, tough, weatherresistant but magnificent. It is certainly in the mountains and glens of the Highlands that most people enjoy the spectacle of great herds of deer dotting the bare hillside and standing majestically on skylines, true monarchs of glens.
However, as herbivorous, cud-chewing animals, related to cattle and sheep, red deer have to consume and process large volumes of vegetation to build up body tissue. On most Highland hillsides only during the summer is such food available in adequate quantity. At other times of the year, especially during the winter, such hillsides yield poor quality and poor quantities of food.
Britain was once a landscape of dense woodland, forest and heath and it is within such forests that the true habitat of deer may be found. The clearance of woodland and forest to make way for agriculture progressively reduced suitable habitat for red deer, a situation considerably exacerbated during the 18th and 19th centuries as demand for timber escalated dramatically.
A combination of wars, the Industrial Revolution, the rapid expansion of the railways and the equally rapid expansion of extensive sheep farming denuded much of upland Scotland of its forest and woodland cover. Therefore red deer were left with little option but to seek out a different, harsher lifestyle on the now open hills. It is interesting to note that a healthy stag from the Highlands would do well to weigh in at 20 stones, whereas a stag living in the comfort zone of a forest in Eastern Europe might well weigh in at 40 stones. This comparison gives a clue to the real origin of red deer and to the habitat that these creatures much prefer.
During these past weeks the red deer herd has grown as hinds have been giving birth to their calves and it is the calves that provide another clue to the origins of red deer. Like the forest-dwelling but smaller roe deer kids, red deer calves are born with spotted coats. This is an effective form of camouflage for a kid or calf dropped in some dell in forest or woodland.
The dappling effect of the sun’s rays penetrating the woodland canopy what this is designed to replicate. In some respects the camouflage of spots is almost as effective on bracken-covered hillsides, which is where many red deer hinds now give birth. Whereas roe deer commonly give birth to twins or even triplets, red deer are more likely to have single calves. Red deer are extremely gregarious in lifestyle, albeit that they generally live in single-sex herds, with the hinds often occupying higher ground.
The enthusiasm for deer stalking naturally led to higher numbers of red deer. That trend has continued and now there are too many deer for their own good. It is also the case that ,as the conservation ethic has developed, there is now much more interest in restoring natural woodland. That has brought red deer into conflict with both foresters and the conservationists who want to see regenerating woodland restored. Red deer and tree regeneration do not generally go together.
Thus there has been much greater pressure exerted to cull the herds of wild red deer more severely. Some recent culls have shown that in many areas the huge numbers of deer have been in very poor condition.
However, I do not think it is either necessary or desirable to go down the road of overkill. Corralling wild deer and shooting them en masse, shooting them from helicopters or indeed shooting pregnant hinds is surely unnecessary and wholly excessive. More humane ways, even if they take longer, are surely more acceptable.