A rutting red deer stag. A total of  7362 red deer were culled in the 2022 – 2023 season, just 11% of the total number of deer culled.

Figures recently released by the National Parks & Wildlife Service reveal that there has been a huge increase in the number of wild deer culled by licenced deer hunters in the latest season’s figures available (2022 – 2023) showing a 20% uplift on the number shot in the previous year, which was already at an all-time high and a multiple of the ten-year average. A total of 65,547 deer were culled across the three species of deer (red deer including red deer hybrids, sika deer and fallow deer). The figures include 18,936 deer culled in County Wicklow, which is recognised as a deer “conflict zone” or “hot spot”, including as it does a natural deer incubator, Wicklow Mountains National Park (where only a minimal number of deer are culled annually).

A total of 6,486 Deer Hunting Licences were issued for the 2023 hunting season , together with 1,414 “Section 42” licences, which resulted in 12,628 deer being culled either during the closed season May to July, or at night with lamps across the nine-month 2023-2024 full season September 2023 to April 2024.

The Open Season for male deer was extended in February 2024 and now runs from 1st August to 30th April, while the Open Season for female and antlerless deer was also extended and now runs from 1st November to 31st March.

ASTONISHING

These figures are described as “astonishing” by Liam Nolan of the Deer Alliance. The Deer Alliance provides training for licensed deer hunters and over 3,800 hunters have participated the Deer Alliance Hunter Competence Assessment Programme (HCAP) since its establishment in 2003, in partnership with NPWS, Coillte, AGS, IFA and other stakeholders. HCAP is now a requirement for first-time applicants for the annual Deer Hunting Licence (DHL).

IMPLOSION

According to Liam Nolan, in terms of establishing a sustainable population of wild deer, any ongoing annual cull at this level will lead to an implosion of the population and to an adverse and unacceptable impact on the biodiversity landscape, where deer have a natural place, provided numbers are maintained in balance with all other interests including farming and forestry.

Again according to Liam Nolan, all licenced deer hunters fully recognise the need to control deer numbers and to minimise damage to farmland crops and to forestry, and this is more than fully evidenced by the upsurge in numbers of both licensed hunters and of deer culled. However, he says that the right balance has to be achieved, as deer have a definite place in our environment as a social, sporting and economic amenity, and that balance is best achieved by a science-based approach to deer management. He says that expanding the season for male deer from four months to nine months might well lead to an increase in numbers shot, but will do nothing to achieve a sustainable population unless female deer are properly managed in tandem, and merely extending the season for female deer into the month of March, when they are heavily pregnant and just weeks short of delivering a fully-formed calf, is not the answer.

“NON-NATIVE ALIEN SPECIES”

Nolan says that it is concerning to read and hear a constant, unrelenting and often ill-informed stream of invective against wild deer, with repeated use of the term “non-native, alien species” in respect of sika deer. The term is used to imply that if something is non-native or alien, it must be exterminated, regardless of the value it brings to biodiversity of fauna. Fallow deer are also an introduced species, non-native and alien to the island of Ireland but nobody would suggest that the fallow deer of Phoenix Park should be exterminated for that reason alone. Meanwhile, some 26,442 sika deer were shot in 2023-24, including 16,901 in Wicklow alone. At the same time, 30,402 fallow deer were shot, making up over 46% of the total number of deer shot, and suggesting that fallow deer are a greater threat to farmland and forestry than sika, where they are not properly managed.

LAMPING ON SECTION 42s

Liam Nolan suggests that a majority of the 12,628 deer shot on Section 42 licences may have been shot at night, using lamps. He says that night shooting or “lamping” is inherently dangerous as at night, it is seldom possible to identify an adequate backstop for a heavy bullet travelling, hit or miss, at over 3000 feet per second and delivering the equivalent of two tonnes of energy on impact. Every shot taken in these circumstances is potentially a breach of Section 8 of the Firearms and Offensive Weapons Act, 1990, “reckless discharge of a firearm”, apart from being completely unselective in terms of the animal shot. He reminds landowners that they could be potentially liable for any third-party injuries where they permit night shooting on their land. He says that landowners should always insist that any hunters they permit on their land are adequately insured and properly trained to HCAP standards.

DEER MANAGEMENT UNITS

Nolan supports the development of a national deer management strategy as recommended by the Deer Management Strategy Group (DMSG) established in 2022 by Minister for Agriculture, Food & the Marine Charlie McConalogue. The DMSG recommends the creation of Deer Management Units (DMUs) in “conflict zones” or “hot spots” where there is a super-abundance of deer and DAFM has recently published a Request for Tenders (RFT) for the position of Programme Manager to implement the DMSG recommendations. The stated value of the tender is €3.4MN over its three-year life. However, Nolan says that it is hard to see where the current cull level can be exceeded within the spirit of the Wildlife Act, which provides protection for all species of flora and fauna. It is suspected that by labelling some species as “non-native alien” species, this could lead to the removal of protection for deer, and not just sika deer. Public opinion may not greet this with enthusiasm – certainly deer enthusiasts, hunters or not, will not.

WHAT IS THE SOLUTION?

Nolan says that the solution lies in proportionality of response to a properly measured problem. DMUs, he says, may be the beginning of such a process but are not in themselves an end. The end lies in proper management planning by all actors, including State Agencies to date deficient or delinquent in the exercise of their duties. The NPWS and Coillte both have important roles in this, as do the 6486 licensed hunters who actually carry out the control of deer. Although until they are legally “reduced into possession” (captured or killed), wild deer belong to no one, at the end of the day, the landowner, or the person holding the sporting rights, is responsible for management and control of the deer on the land. According to Nolan, all deer control must be carried out safely, efficiently and humanely, by competent, trained and certified licensed hunters, based on scientific management planning – and especially not just on a “first deer seen gets shot” basis, which unfortunately seems to be an approach favoured by some and possibly preferred by many.