Homecoming

They've been away extending their summer visit to relatives on the higher moors during the unseasonal autumn. This is their home and where they're usually to be found in the cooler months. Some appear to be familiar faces.

Those seen this morning were a mix of hinds and young stags;

this was the most senior of the stags, yawning as he raised himself from bed. He's still much younger than the venerable character seen on Thursday.

They are all very welcome. The place needed them as it definitely did not need farm livestock.


All management here revolves around farm practices and that's the scandal of it. If the managers don't see that then they are unfit to be called conservationists. In these pictures deer are near the disgusting barbed wire fence. Nobody who had or has any involvement in erecting or defending the existence of this barbarity should be allowed within 100 miles of any public money. That anyone could try to defend such constructions for biodiversity reasons would be proof of their moral turpitude. It is also proof that farm animals are more important than wild animals making the designation of this place a 'Nature Reserve' an offence - taking us as fools.

A long time ago the question was asked: how many wild animals have been injured on this fence? Answer came there none. Doubtless the wildlife trust workers and trustees shrugged as if to say how could we possibly know that? It is of course a perfectly valid question. If those entrusted to run a nature reserve don't know what harm to nature their actions have caused then they should not be performing those actions.

I wonder how many from the trust and its supporters have watched carefully to see the behaviour of these wonderfully free and dignified animals when they approach the fence? Of course they think the deer jump over easily. And so mostly they do. But sometimes they go through the fence, ducking between the strands of wire, risking damage to eyes and limbs especially if alarmed and surprised. Other mammals such as badgers and foxes also go through. The evidence is not hard to find in the form of hairs on the barbs. Some of us have also watched them going through. So what is the fence there for? It's for farming, not for wildlife. So much for calling yourself a wildlife trust. It's clear throughout. Time to say what needs to be said. The management of choice for SWT is pollution and destruction.