TO MANY DEER IN NORFOLK

[Harnser]

An interesting article in the local newspaper stating that there are to many deer in Norfolk . It goes on to say that the number of deer has risen to almost pest proportions . It states more and more road kills and collisions with cars and the rise in urban deer living in peoples gardens eating flowers and vegatables . It goes on to say that a cull may be necessary but because that it is a specialist job and only a handfull of people are capable then it could be difficult .An other view was that some sort of birth control should be introduced . Looks like old harnser will have to become more active in the stalking roll . I must admit i seen more road kills of late than for a long time . Has your county got to many deer . Harnser .

[auto culto]

I wish we had to many deer but we don't have much at all round here. Lucky to see a munty really. Sounds like some good opportunity to be had that way

[Imperfection]

Here in nearby Cambridgeshire we're plagued with muntjacs mostly.Almost daily i see them roaming the fields where i work (a disused WW2 airfield) and our rep hit one recently in his 4x4.I have eaten mutjac and quite like it too-perhaps i should apply for FAC...

[henry d]

Recently they shut the A9 above Dunkeld so they could lamp the resident Fallow, as they were getting too many hits and near misses with all the traffic that travels between N & S Scotland.

[Trussman]

Recently they shut the A9 above Dunkeld so they could lamp the resident Fallow, as they were getting too many hits and near misses with all the traffic that travels between N & S Scotland.

 

God, it must have been pretty serious.

[henry d]

Very, I don`t fancy hitting a fallow buck @ 60mph

 

The local estate got a special licence to shoot from the road in vehicles with a lamp.

[Trussman]

My mum's friend brother in law was killed in the states by hitting a Whitetail in his car at night. Travelling back from Wiltshire a couple of weeks back in the early evening, I counted 20 deer along the side of the motorway. They were just standing there feeding, totally unaffected by the cars.

[new to the flock]

Stop mowing the road sides.

 

NTTF

[Baldrick]

A friend's father was killed swerving to miss a fallow buck outside Aylsham, Harnser, although this was about 15 years ago. The area continues to be plagued by fallow. Having moved down to Essex, the problem with fallow persists here. I nearly had an accident myself yesterday, missing four hinds by a matter of yards on a dark lane, and have also had to more DVCs in the area in recent months. Muntjac seem less of a problem here.

[Harnser]

A friend's father was killed swerving to miss a fallow buck outside Aylsham, Harnser, although this was about 15 years ago. The area continues to be plagued by fallow. Having moved down to Essex, the problem with fallow persists here. I nearly had an accident myself yesterday, missing four hinds by a matter of yards on a dark lane, and have also had to more DVCs in the area in recent months. Muntjac seem less of a problem here.

 

If its who i think it was who was killed i knew him well and used to shoot on his farm . He was a loverly loverly man . Harnser .

[1967spud]

me thinks rc may have been hi initials

[vampire]

Loads of em round here,red,fallow,roe,muntjac and i got my fac .223 for the munty coming :unsure: ,regularly see a herd of 17 red and 13 fallow,in total have seen 80 deer since sept 2009.

[anser2]

As you say Harnser we have a lot of deer in Norfolk. On my Broadland wildfowl shoot I expect to see 5 + Chinese water deer every time I go for a flight. In my woods in North Norfolk we had over 150 roe , fallow and red deer a decade ago. High levels of culling have been taking out 40 - 50 a year and we now have the reds down from 75 to 25, the roe down from 100 to 30-40 and the fallow to a handful. But we are still over run with muntjac and Chinese water deer are starting to appear now.

 

A couple of years ago a guy bought a 40 grand Jag. Within 2 hours of driving it off the forcourt he wrote it off hitting a red deer just out side my wood. His insurance had yet to be processed !!!

[Bluebarrels]

Round here in Hampshire plenty too :unsure: havent seen so many for a long time BB, sad to see them dead on the roadside though

[Paddy Galore!]

quite a few roaming around my perm in swanton abbot harnser, reds and muntjac are all i've seen so far. also saw tracks in the snow at my fathers place last winter, must have come over from the woods on the outskirts of marsham.

[454697819]

its carnage in Suffolk too at the moment, they are everywhere, I give it 6 months before I hit one of the species..

[Lez325]

I have a 2,500 acre ( Mostly woodland) shoot thats teaming with Reds and a few Roe- not over populated though

 

Les

[Highlander]

There are claims that taken as a whole there are more deer today roaming the British countryside than there’ve ever been.

 

Personally I find that hard to believe but even so there are plenty of deer about.

 

My only problem is the indiscriminate slaughter of them. Far better to see them well managed, Quality not quantity should be the best practice and if that had been practiced over the last few decades there wouldn’t be the problem we have now...if you can call it a problem from a stalkers point of view!

[al4x]

we've got similar but what I think you'll find happens is that some farms they are managed properly and some they aren't. My local estate used to have 200 plus fallow and that was a problem, now down to 40 or so with various ones moving in and out and the road accidents have become rare. However just down the road a farmer certainly didn't allow any management and he had a herd of 180 in an area close to a town and these are being a complete nuisance. There may be light at the end of the tunnel as he had to call a mate of mine to destroy one caght in a fence and he pointed out what a problem they were being and that this was going to become a regular incidence if he didn't work out a strategy for managing their numbers. The other downside of this is the deer aren't that healthy in this herd presumably down to there being far too many in one small area

[docholiday]

There is no doubt that the numbers are increasing, I dont think we cull enough and it will be only a short time before the goverment gets involved and a national cull takes place.

 

As mentioned there are areas that are well managed and I like to think my farms fall into that group, however deer will move from high density to lower density for food and love so unless all areas are managed we are fighting a loosing battle.

Doc

[anser2]

Deer are possible more common today than they ever had been for several reasons. Back in the middle ages there was far less woodland deer habitat in England than there is today. In East Anglia they have abundant food thought the year and there is little better food a deer can eat in mid winter than sugar beet. This means the winter die off of weaker individuals is far less than in natural wild habitats. Of course if you go back far enough there were a range of predators of deer keeping their numbers in check. Today they have only one main predator- man. We have four new species of deer in this country that were not here a thousand years ago. these various species of deer have different feeding requirements , thus a woodland can hold more deer than when there were just our 2 native species , reds and roe.

 

In addition on many farms and estates there has been no tradition of deer control. They would shoot the odd animal , but no serious deer management was taking place. This is changing now . One local farmer told me he liked to see the red deer on his farm , until I pointed out that he was always moaning when a few pigeons were eating a few pounds of wheat on layed fields. But the 75 odd reds he had were spending the whole summer in his crops and taking tons of corn , plus trampling down a lot more. He soon changed his mind on deer control.