Who Asked Them?

Mark Fisher's brilliant talk at the Action for Involvement event last June began with this question "Who asked the deer?" Management Plans and HLS agreements are made, we all know, in the interests of landowners and just calling yourself a wildlife trust doesn't change that. The deer and the other wildlife, much of which is rarely seen, should be top of the agenda but it's the wellbeing of the managers that really matters.

The great thing about deer is that they are large enough for you to see with a little patience and persistence and they remind you that there are many other creatures much harder to see and just as important. The place to look for them today was where I had guessed. Proof that however dull witted one might be one eventually learns. As for the deer,  they are not so stupid as to ignore the benefit of being on the eastern side of a steep hill when a westerly gale is blowing. They also look wonderful in the woods where it's harder to see them and much trickier to focus a photo.

This part of Blacka has been one of the most secluded and untouched before SWT were given the site. Now they like to get their under-occupied volunteers and 'Wildscape' staff to fill in time cutting trees down in winter. To call it dysfunctional hardly suffices.

Truly nobody cares at all about wildlife. If they did they would leave the trees alone and stop discarding potentially dangerous items around that can cause injury. This barbed wire is bad enough in a fence like the one the eastern moors outfit have erected across Wimble Holme Hill. Just discarding it on the ground so is plain irresponsible.