New licence announced to manage deer populations by night
The CLA’s Robert Frewen reviews the announcement of a new class licence from Natural England to help land managers keep on top of escalating deer numbers
Natural England (NE) has introduced a class licence to kill deer at night by shooting, known as CL55. This licence is due to rising deer populations which have become a significant and increasing problem throughout the British Isles. Back in the mid-1980s, the total number of deer for all six species was believed to be fewer than half a million. Today, estimates have the figure marching towards to two million and possibly more, with populations having doubled since 1999.
The six species are the native red and roe deer – plus the four introduced species – sika, fallow, muntjac and Chinese water deer.
Why is there a deer problem?
The impacts of these high numbers give significant cause for concern for people and for nature. More than 74,000 vehicle collisions occur annually, and the environmental damage is a major worry with browsing in sensitive woodland sites preventing natural regeneration and damage to rare understory flora. The harm to commercial forestry and wider economic damage is a worry too, for example, herds of fallow over a thousand strong in southern England can decimate an arable crop overnight.
Some half a million deer are already culled annually, but the majority of deer species give birth to twins each year, and thanks to our overall warming climate, most twins survive the first winter. As a result, the current cull numbers can’t keep up.
The next part of the problem lies in the only legal method of control open to land managers. Deer can only be killed with a high velocity rifle of appropriate calibre. These weapons are very similar to those used by the military and have a lethal range of over a mile. Great care therefore needs to be taken, both in their use by practitioners and also by the police when they issue licenses to hold such weapons. This in turn means that the road to getting a licence to keep an appropriate firearm and the relevant experience in deer control is not easy.
New licence ‘a welcome move’
Until now, deer control had to be carried out between dawn and dusk. Land managers can therefore be wary of shooting too close to last light; a heart shot deer will always run between five and ten yards before dropping, and in low light and thick cover it can quickly become very hard to find the carcase. If not found until the next morning it, will be unfit to go into the food chain.
The new class licence is an attempt by NE to increase the number of deer culled annually and decrease deer numbers year on year. As such it is a welcome move, albeit the eligibility criteria remains cumbersome and not easy to meet.
My own case is an example in that I would not meet the basic criteria, never having completed any formal training – I was taught deer control by gamekeepers and stalkers forty years ago and have been doing it most years, initially supervised, ever since.
Notwithstanding the unwieldy nature of the licence application process, its introduction is good news. Modern night sighting systems, including night vision riflescopes and thermal imaging riflescopes, have been a game changer. It is also by far the most accurate way to calculate deer numbers in any given area. They have introduced enhancements that materially improve night‑shooting safety, providing a sound basis for this change.
To find out more, the full licence can be read here.
