Scottish Wildlife Trust calls for a deer cull to protect biodiversity

Deer management decision welcomed by the Scottish Wildlife Trust

September 2013. Leading conservation charity, the Scottish Wildlife Trust, has welcomed the decision taken by the Scottish Parliament's Rural Affairs Committee to scrutinize how deer management agreements, which help control deer numbers across Scotland, are impacting on biodiversity, habitats and ultimately climate change. 

Too many deer

The Scottish Wildlife Trust believes that in some parts of Scotland deer numbers are too high and this puts pressure on Scotland's wildlife and ecosystems because of the damage caused by overgrazing and trampling.

Head of Policy for the Scottish Wildlife Trust, Dr. Maggie Keegan, said:" The Scottish Wildlife Trust heartedly backs the Rural Affairs Committee decision to investigate the impacts of deer on Scotland's biodiversity and climate change targets.

"The Scottish Wildlife Trust believes a crucial step in determining how many deer to cull in any given area must be to assess the impacts on habitats of the current local deer population - this requires habitat monitoring.

"The Scottish Wildlife Trust knows from site condition monitoring of our nationally and internationally protected sites that nearly a quarter have been damaged because of overgrazing and trampling pressure.

"It is difficult to see how Scotland will achieve its 2020 biodiversity target - or its commitment to increasing woodland cover as part of mitigating and adapting to climate change - without getting deer numbers under control."

DEER NUMBERS IN SCOTLAND

According to the Scottish Wildlife Trust, there are more than 750, 000 deer in Scotland (c: 400,000 red; 350,000 roe; 25,000 Sika and 8,000 fallow deer.

Red deer have increased three fold in the last 50 years (roe deer have only been counted from 2005 and they have increased by 5,000 over that period). Unfortunately culling of red deer has not kept pace with population expansion - if anything there has been a decrease in numbers culled over the last 10 years.

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/deer-cull-scotland.html