Thinking about Deer

 

News that the RSPB/NT intends to shoot deer on Bigmoor tells us we need to think seriously about deer and their place in this public land. That's particularly so because some of those soon to be shot will have been seen on Blacka, may even be more associated with Blacka than Bigmoor. Once shot they won't return, that's for sure. But why is it that we have seen so little of the deer in the last six months compared to previous years? Could it be due to something the managers have done on Bigmoor? More fences for example, or something else? Could the extra numbers there be more simply explained?

The first thing that should be said is that the conservation industry locally have always been uneasy about deer. The animals are wild and free moving, resistant to control, while the managers themselves are addicted to controlling all aspects of the land they manage. Much though some of them may like the deer, larger wild animals will never be truly compatible with the kind of landscape SMP wish to promote, one based on office targets and prescribed outcomes. They won't be shifted, it is their lifeblood. Freedom, embodied by the delightfully unscripted lifestyle of the deer does not fit in with the regime of reports, plans, grant applications and promotional interpretation boards which are the daily grind of the local conservation industry.

But ask local people what wildlife they value and the chances are they will first mention the deer. In the same way local people in the Forest of Dean value the wild boar and those near the River Otter in Devon love the beavers. It is their very freedom that captures our imaginations in this overwhelmingly over managed landscape. The measure of the pleasure they give us is the extent to which they thwart the plans of the managers be they farmers or gamekeepers or from the third sector businesses of the conservation industry.