After their welcome return in the last 12 years the notion of a Blacka Moor without deer or the prospect of seeing them doesn't bear thinking about. My observation has always been that it doesn't bother many conservation people and farmers much at all. Fortunately some do care but how much influence do they have? The overwhelming majority of the public want to see deer and many of those would also extend that to other genuine wildlife while having no interest in seeing cows and sheep except on proper farmland and in dedicated fields.
But numbers is an issue. While seeing sheep and cattle regularly where I don't think they should be - on a nature site - I have seen very few deer. And when I have it's always been the same small group. The decline in sightings started in 2014 - before the RSPB set about their cull of 60-70 deer a few months ago. So what's going on?
Visiting Blacka ten days consecutively I estimate you might see deer once. That compares with regular daily sightings at many times in the previous ten years. There is some hearsay evidence that farmers and people employed by them have been active in shooting them. Not all farmers would approve but it doesn't need the agreement of all. And many people like using their weapons of destruction egged on by campaigns waged by the Countryside Alliance and associates.
That is one reason I opposed the RSPB's cull. It created a climate of opinion in which deer were seen as undesirable and fair targets; many gun owners don't need that but some would be encouraged.
We await the comprehensive report which must surely be forthcoming from the Sheffield Moors Partnership on the recent cull and its impact on deer numbers and distribution.
To think that all we might have to look forward to in coming here is a view of what we might see on farmland anywhere:
...... enough to bring on clinical depression.
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