Does it give the impression that the numbers of deer on Blacka are much greater than they are? If so that's misleading. Numbers are actually small and you can walk here every day for a week and not see any. I'm careful to be here at the best time and I know where to look. But also it's tempting to post pictures when I do see them. That could make some think that there are obviously lots of them around and culling is a good idea. When I do see them they are usually the same five or six I've seen often before.
A good many comments from the more progressive conservationists focus on there being too many wild deer in British landscapes causing unnatural vegetation and stopping the regeneration of trees for example. It should be made clear that this applies to parts of Scotland not to most of Britain, around here for example. In the Peak District the problem with grazing animals relates only to sheep and cows. Scottish landowners and gamekeepers do all they can to encourage large numbers of deer and grouse so there will be lots of targets for stalkers and shooters. That creates an unbalanced and artificial kind of upland scenery, without trees and inhospitable to large varieties of wildlife some of which is actively persecuted by gamekeepers. The same happens on the grouse moors of northern England though deer are less common.
In the Eastern Moors area, including Blacka and Burbage, Sheffield Moors Partnership's attitude is different, but equally odd. They talk about 'cultural' and 'traditional' landscapes where sheep and cattle eat all before them and trees become a rare sight. The story is that they like to maintain open views, but they rarely mention the farm subsidies. Trees are not welcome for reasons of ideology and doctrine which seeks to justify man's ongoing control over natural processes - in effect, farming. In this scenario deer are not welcome; tolerated maybe to an extent but an irritant at times when they don't do as they are told. Their independence -wilfulness (a word linked to wildness) - is inconvenient.
So those who want more trees in the landscape of Scotland are right to be concerned about the way the shooting industry keeps large numbers of deer on Scottish hills. On the Sheffield Moors perversely the conservation charities want to stop trees growing!! They cut them down and use cows and sheep as anti-tree warriors. They certainly can't complain there are too many deer even if numbers double, so long as they continue to use sheep and cows.
Estimates made suggest the whole area of Sheffield Moors has probably about 150 deer which is not a lot when you consider that there are some 2,500 hectares of land. One reason they tend to concentrate in one part of the whole Sheffield Moors expanse is due to management of the land in the past. There are ways of getting them to circulate more but it hardly looks to be a priority when cows are being brought in doing a far more intensive wrecking job than the wild animals.
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