The Deer Initiative is a broad partnership of statutory, voluntary and private interests dedicated to “ensuring the delivery of a sustainable, well managed wild deer population in England and Wales”. 

The partners abide by the principles of The Deer Accord and encourage others to share their commitment and priorities as an integral part of their management of deer.  The principles of the Deer Accord are to achieve:

          A sustainable and balanced population of wild deer

          A humane, responsible and sensitive approach to the management of wild deer

          An experienced and knowledgeable capability in deer management

          An informed public understanding of deer management

          A partnership approach to reducing the adverse environmental and economic impact of wild deer.

Over the past 12 months there has been a great uncertainty as to the future of The Deer Initiative, and the role of its Deer Liaison Officers (DLO).  I am happy to be able to report that continued funding has been secured from the Forestry Commission and from English Nature for a further three-year period.  With the extra funding available we are establishing full time Deer Liaison posts in the Central Region and South West Region.  This will compliment the work that I have been carrying out in the Eastern Region and work carried out by our part time DLO in the Southern Region (RobertUnderhill).  I hope to be able to continue to cover the Eastern Region for this three-year period on an extended secondment from Forest Enterprise, where I was a wildlife ranger.

There are going to be many challenges facing deer management and the protection of habitats from excessive deer damage in the coming years.  Deer populations are continuing to rise and recent research from the Forestry Commission has shown that even at current culling levels deer populations are likely to double in the next ten years.  Indications are that the amount of damage occurring in many of our woodlands is at an unacceptable level. Massive damage is being done to newly coppiced areas, with little or no natural regeneration occurring in our ancient woodlands, and with possible knock-on effects to fauna such as butterfly and bird populations caused by the change in the woodland structure. 

If populations of deer do increase significantly, more extensive damage to arable crops is likely.  At present damage to cereal crops is thought to be minimal, although problems are occurring at a local level.  In parts of the region, brassica crops such as cauliflowers and crops grown under plastic for the early markets are experiencing damage.

 October to December is one of the peaks for deer related road traffic accidents (RTAs) and this year we are still getting a large number of deer killed on the regions roads.  Annually 5,000-10,000 deer are killed or injured, and last year three people died as a result of hitting a deer in the Eastern Region.  Motorists must take care whilst driving through the country areas and slow down when wildlife is seen near the roads.  Wildlife warning signs have been erected throughout the region, and these are placed in areas prone to wildlife related traffic accidents. Remember where you see one deer there are bound to be more.

Hitting a deer is a traumatic experience, not only for the driver but also for the deer. In many accidents the deer will be killed outright by the collision but in something like 25% of cases the deer will be injured, and either stagger off into adjacent woodland or lie on the roadside.  In these cases the kindest course of action will be to have the animal put down in a humane manner, either by lethal injection, administered by a vet, or with the use of a rifle, by a local deer manager or gamekeeper.  Just remember though that you are not allowed to follow an injured deer onto private land without the landowner’s permission, and this should be sought before any follow up is undertaken.  Many of the local police forces have a list of qualified persons who are competent in the humane dispatch of injured animals, so the best course of action is to ring the police and ask them to help.

Current estimates indicate that nationally in the region of 40,000 deer are being killed each year. Normally we expect at least ten human fatalities and approaching 300 human injuries annually.  Costs of car repairs alone are estimated to be £11 million. 

Please do continue to send records of where you see dead deer on the roads as well as those where you have been directly involved either in dispatching an injured deer or when you have unfortunately hit one. 

Reports can be posted to The Deer Initiative, PO Box 465, Bury St Edmunds, IP28 6XD Email eastern@thedeerinitiative.co.uk or visit the deer collisions web www.deercollisions.co.uk

The need for cooperation in the management of the deer populations in the region is becoming more and more evident as my time with The Deer Initiative increases.  The common theme on much of the land I visit, and with the owners and managers I meet, always seems to be that deer are having an impact, and that whatever one person does will have an effect on those around him.  Deer know no boundaries and in most of the Eastern Region the deer’s range will extend well beyond one landowner’s land.  This leads to problems when we are managing, not just the culls, but also the monitoring of the population and habitat damage.  In the past we have been very reliant upon knowing how many deer we have got.  As my time spent working with Forest Enterprise increased and I moved onto my current role with The Deer Initiative I came to realise that the impact that the deer were having upon the habitats in which they live is just as important as knowing numbers.  In some areas we are working with the woodland owners looking directly at the correlation between deer impacts and deer usage of those woodlands, with very little reference to actual numbers of deer present.  This method scores various usage signs, such as slot marks, dung piles, and track ways.  Scores are then also carried out for deer impact, which relates to aspects such as browsing and fraying.  If the amount of damage scored is unacceptably high then there are too many deer.

Throughout the Eastern Region I have started to work with the landowners to create Deer Management Groups. The concept behind these is that if the landowners are prepared to talk about the deer at a landscape level, i.e. at the deer’s natural range, as opposed to at a landownership scale then we may be able to manage the deer population more effectively.  The groups rely on the sharing of information, such as cull data, amounts of damage, species present, and a rough idea of numbers seen, remembering that we usually see only a low percentage of the deer we may actually have.  The more this information can be shared the better the whole group will work.  We need local people managing deer to meet the landowner’s requirements for that particular area, and if this can start to meet the priorities for our ancient woodlands in the area so much the better.

We have a number of groups already in the region, starting to work together. If there are landowners close to established groups, or stalkers who already manage land close to these groups, please do contact me so that we may start to share more information amongst the group.

David Hooton
The Deer Initiative, PO Box 465, Bury St Edmunds, IP28 6XD

Telephone 01842 890798, mobile 07970 14 15 12

Email Click to send e-mail to: eastern@thedeerinitiative.co.uk

© 2005   Suffolk Naturalists' Society

DHTML menus from used by kind permision.