NatureScot recently rolled out three new incentive scheme pilots in the area of South Loch Ness for the culling of invasive non-native Sika deer, and in Central Scotland, primarily for the culling of Roe but also for managing an expanding red deer population. The third scheme is being run by the Cairngorms National Park Authority and will not be open to recreational stalkers. These schemes have an allocated budget of £95,000 to be paid out to authorised deer managers at £70 per female deer, and £35 for juvenile deer taken over and above their standard cull target. But do these payments go far enough to incentivise those working in the field, who currently undertake deer management at considerable cost to themselves, or to the estate/landowner they work for?
Deer managers across Scotland are being asked to increase cull rates by 25% or 50,000 deer per annum, to help reach Scottish Government Net Zero and biodiversity targets. Notably, NatureScot publishes cull return data using only five out of 32 local council authorities in Scotland and has funded those five local authorities to the tune of approximately £37,000 to undertake deer management operations in these areas. Additionally, £80,000 of funding from the Covid-19 Recovery Fund supported three new deer larders in Scotland. Currently, around 80% of deer control is carried out by the private sector in Scotland.
On Tuesday 8 October, during Portfolio Questions, the Minister for Agriculture and Connectivity, Jim Fairlie, suggested that funding will be made available for further community deer larders, stating:
“We are pursuing a range of actions to deliver this commitment including the provision of community deer larders and the three pilot incentive schemes led by NatureScot and the Cairngorms National Park Authority which launched in early autumn to financially support deer managers to control numbers of deer in specific parts of Scotland."
On the NatureScot information page outlining the incentive scheme pilots, the government organisation stated:
“Carcass disposal is at the discretion of the participants. The route of disposal will be recorded via reporting on the Deer App as either: sold and to whom, given away, processed for own consumption or left in field as unfit for human consumption.”
The Scottish Countryside Alliance are at pains to point out that deer should not be seen as a pest species in our countryside. The majestic red deer pulls in many visitors interested in wildlife tourism, which brings in around £100,000 from tourists merely wanting to watch these wild animals in their natural habitat within the Scottish countryside. Deer stalking in Scotland is said to bring in more than £100 million annually to the economy.
Deer managers do not want to leave dead animals lying in the field, especially if these animals can provide good quality venison for local and UK-wide venison markets. But if they are forced to cull 25% more animals per year, and at considerable cost to the landowner, this may be the reality for many, and we fear the least expensive option for the Scottish Government and NatureScot to promote. Any proposed incentives must include considerations for proper deer extraction and recovery operations to take place. Investment needs to be made into infrastructure to support the venison industry and training made available for the handling and processing of venison for the food industry. These 50,000 additional deer must have somewhere to go.
A research paper recently published in the British Ecological Society journal, Ecological Solutions and Evidence, has claimed that culled deer carcasses should be left where they fell in order to provide vital nutrients and a food source to other animals, benefiting the local ecosystem. This is a reasonable scenario, but these nutrients will be returned to the soil in an extremely localised area, so it is questionable how useful this would be as a form of soil fertilisation in very large areas of naturally nutrient-deprived land. One would only start to see minimal benefits of this nationally if every deer shot was left where it fell. There is a reason a farmer will spread lime across a whole field rather than just dump a small pile in the middle of it, not to mention the draw of unwanted predators from afar onto land where extensive conservational efforts have been employed. The John Muir Trust has, in part, utilised this method of carcass disposal on land owned by the organisation, but they have come under intense media scrutiny for this practice as it does not sit well with local residents, gamekeepers, land managers and the tourism industry in general. Members of the public do not want to see the dead and decomposing carcasses of deer lying in areas of outstanding natural beauty, infecting waterways and sensitive ecosystems.
The British Deer Society promote best practice by advising that when there is no other option but to leave deer carcasses in the field, they should be in an area well away from public rights of way, waterways and livestock. This is also true for gralloching procedures, which should be carried out away from public footpaths or areas where people frequent to prevent any misunderstandings and negative reactions from members of the public. Industry experts have worked hard for decades to ensure these guides remain contemporary and, as the name suggests, provide best practice techniques to all stalkers and deer managers. This information is freely available online and can be found in the Wild Deer Best Practice Guides. It is both supported and part compiled by the Scottish Countryside Alliance and our partner organisations.
We will be meeting with MSPs and government ministers in the coming weeks to discuss the pressures that the new deer legislation will have on our sector. Our focus is for a better UK market to be supported, normalising the consumption of venison instead of shipping it to or from our shores, or leaving perfectly good food on the hill to rot when so many struggle to feed their families here at home. It is up to our government to help us promote low food miles, especially when it’s a sustainable, healthy and organic meat such as venison. We will wait to see what the Natural Environment Bill will propose for deer management in future and hope that the Scottish Government will both listen to the advice that is offered and deliver on their promises of support.