Wolves, drones, the RSPB, bTB and medieval hunting practices – 2024 FC Deer Conference

On 1 October the great and the good, along with the interested of the deer stalking and deer management world, gathered in Hampshire for the latest iteration of the Forestry Commission’s (FC) Deer Conference, which looks at the issues facing those wishing to manage deer across the English landscape. Natural England introduced the issue of deer management in England as a “nationally significant conservation issue”, a message with which the Countryside Alliance concurs. 

The FC’s deer officer, Alastair Boston, assembled quite the roster of guest speakers who fascinated, captivated and drew much discussion. Speakers from large bodies such as the RSPB and Forestry and Land Scotland, delved into their various experiences of deer management and its enormous importance for maintaining healthy woodlands and wetlands and for enabling success for tree planting and rare species conservation targets. The RSPB, does practice deer management on its nature reserves and has a delicate path to tread from a communications perspective, the idea of the RSPB employing people to cull deer is anathema to many of its members. Its challenge lies in communicating the necessity of death to sustain life to those who are antis of the first degree.  

The power of drones in deer counts was covered by Ben Harrower, whose company carries out drone deer counts for government bodies and private estates alike. His insight was that deer densities in some areas are much higher than previously thought. This is particularly the case for fallow, which can be in herds of over 1,500 individuals in the south of England. Technology used in drone-based deer counting is advancing rapidly, with machine learning taking an increasingly more prominent role, however, procurement of hardware can be a challenge with so much armed conflict raging across Europe and the Near East. 

The much-debated issue of large predator reintroduction was raised by representatives of The Wolves and Humans Foundation and Carnivore Damage Prevention News, who presented case studies from central Europe and North America. Although not the panacea for the English deer management issue, the theory of wolf reintroduction is highly nuanced and experience shows some unexpected trends, such as limited increases in livestock predation by wolves in times of wolf population increases in the Carpathian mountains of Slovakia. As always, there are many sides to every story and the issue of large predator reintroduction will rumble on for many years to come, and it is perhaps needless to say any pilot scheme in the UK would unlikely be in England.  

Peter Green, veterinary consultant to the British Deer Society, gave an informed update on the presence and proliferation of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) within wild deer populations. One of the most stressed takeaways from this pathological tour de force was absolute condemnation of the provision of supplementary fodder or medicated fodder for wild deer populations. Such practice leads to saliva to saliva transfer of bTB between individual deer, this does not extend to salt/mineral blocks, which do not support bacterial life. 

Without doubt the most entertaining talk of the day was given by Naomi Sykes, professor of archaeology at the University of Exeter, who discussed the history of the fallow deer in England and the relationship between changing hunting practices and deer populations in England. It is the unashamedly vegetarian Prof Sykes that is behind the Fair Game / Virtuous Venison movement, trying to introduce young people to venison and encouraging them to eat it, by giving them the hands-on experience of the medieval process of ‘unmaking’ the deer. A practice that is worth reading about and which might be of great benefit for the deer management issue if it were to be brought back. What became clear during Prof Sykes’ presentation was that human culture is the likely cause of the deer population issue, and the solution must also lie with human culture. What we need to foster is a re-acceptance of a culture of hunting within England. If we can succeed in that, then achieving deer management targets will become much more realistic. We may have the required data, and we already have most of the required tools, but that which remains outstanding is the required market and the required public acceptance.