Challenges of managing deer in small woodlands
By Geoffrey Guy.
WHEN it comes to recreational deerstalking I’m sure we would be happy to participate wherever the opportunity arises. When we are managing deer with strict objectives to reduce damage to crops, woodlands or other sensitive habitats – or indeed to reduce the population to allow surviving deer to thrive where their health has been affected by over-population – there are some challenges.
When it comes to management, we need to shoot more than the occasional deer to meet objectives and we sometimes need to shoot quite specifically. That can be a challenge on its own but there are also lots of small sites requiring deer management which present the difficulty of managing a population that can simply cross the boundary from perhaps a small woodland that you are trying to protect and be ‘safe’ from your management.
What if you are responsible for managing deer in an area where you look after the trees and woodlands but those wooded areas are separated by large tracts of agricultural land which you may not have access to?
