Deer and Managers

In SWT’s first management plan for Blacka Moor the existence of red deer was not even acknowledged!

They were occasional visitors to the site even then but unknown to the trust and the majority of visitors. But since then the deer have established themselves as not just regular visitors but as a permanent presence and numbers have increased year on year. Their influence on the site’s vegetation is also increasing and will continue to do so. They browse on the low vegetation including birch and they occupy the bracken stands in ways that the cattle are unwilling to do.

They are there throughout the year and have started to breed on the site, at least one fawn having been born here this year. They are looked on by local people as their own wild animals however much SWT goes on about “Beautiful Beasts of Blacka” in various publications – meaning the cattle!!!

The astonishing admission from a 'wildlife' trust is that they don’t think that deer will do ‘the job’ properly. In other words deer don’t obey orders and conform to the management plan; more evidence if it was needed of the impoverished imagination of the trust. They seem incapable of the imaginative thought which means that wildness does not always give you just what you demand; in fact that’s almost a definition of it. But then what can you expect of those who want always to be ‘in control’?