Larry Fowles - The Complete Deer Stalker: From Field to Larder

THE COMPLETE

DEER STALKER

From Field to Larder

THE COMPLETE

DEER STALKER

From Field to Larder

Larry Fowles

First published in 2021 by
The Crowood Press Ltd
Ramsbury, Marlborough
Wiltshire SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This e-book first published in 2021

Larry Fowles 2021

All rights reserved. This e-book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the authors and publishers rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 78500 855 9

Introduction

Deer hunting, indeed any form of hunting, is an emotive subject in the twenty-first century. Never before has this been the case, meat having historically been the best food, demonstrated with numerous records of banquets with birds stuffed inside animals and lavish platters of game for lords and gentry, while poorer people ate vegetables and grain, supplemented with whatever fish, white meat or little red meat that could be obtained.

Venison, in having to be hunted, was the preserve of the very rich, as most others lived by subsistence farming. There simply wasnt time to hunt, even if land were available on which to do so. Such was the case throughout the medieval periods (AD4251500) to the Tudor and Stuart eras. The Industrial Revolution in Georgian through to Victorian times meant a little leisure time for some, but meat was still a luxury. Slowly, perhaps since the end of World War I, diets included more meat, and different forms of hunting became available to the lower classes.

In recent times deer have multiplied rapidly and are now over abundant. They have no natural predators, and with the expansion of coppices, woods and forests in England (see It is a fact that deer need to be controlled that is, culled in the UK in greater numbers than ever before.

However, cultural attitudes have changed considerably, and meat is no longer seen as an aspirational food source for many people. Deer culling is opposed by groups calling for alternative ways of controlling numbers. Arguments are put forward that deer management can be achieved through non-lethal means, which is true on a small scale. Often deer-proof 2m-high fences are erected around vulnerable woodlands, while individual saplings in smaller plantations can be protected with tubes around the young trunks. But countrywide, this has little effect on the deer population as a whole, as deer will simply move on to the next unprotected wood; it will not reduce their numbers. Covering all rural areas with plastic tubes and fences is not a practical solution.

Sterilization is one way of population control promoted by opponents to culling. Such programmes have been carried out in the United States on isolated populations, such as NewYorks Staten Island, an area of just 150sq km (58sq miles), with a population of around 2,000 deer in 2015. A $4.1million scheme sterilized 1,154 deer, reducing the population by just 8 per cent over three years. This will need constant attention however, such that a $2.5 million contract is being awarded to carry it forwards another five years. The cost was $3,727 (2,900) per animal sterilized. On that basis, Britains estimated 1.5 to 2 million deer would require a sterilization programme that would cost eye-watering sums, even if it were possible to capture or get close enough to dart a good proportion of the female deer across open countryside and the hills of Scotland.

Perhaps in the future there may be a safe and effective contraception or sterilization method to control our wild deer population, but at present it is not even on the horizon. Cutting-edge research is exploring the insertion of immunocontraception (IC) antigens into pollen or plant spores for example, but the questions of side effects and unintended consequences, if such a strategy proved remotely possible, need to be answered. It is a complex area, including the likely increased longevity of a female that does not produce young, and the effects on male deer puberty, antler growth and behaviour if males ingest a vaccine meant for females, among other issues.

Authorities and respected researchers both in this country and in others are of the consensus that immuno-contraception works very well when injected into female deer, but there are currently no delivery systems that can be used to implement IC in free-living, wild deer. The piecemeal management of our resident deer will need to continue, each landowner culling, or not, the deer roaming over their land as they see fit.

This book recognizes the increased population numbers of certain species, and the rapid changes in hunting technology, and discusses what this may mean for the stalker on his or her patch in the UK.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

I came into deer stalking along a fairly unusual route. I was employed in the red meat industry at the time as a slaughterman; the owner of the abattoir was a landowner and farmer. As a teenager I would work weekends, collecting hay and straw by small lorry and conveying it from the farm to the abattoir lairage. The farm connection developed into shooting rabbits and pigeons, which I would sell to local butchers. Later my interest turned to deer and because of the day job, carcasses posed little issue to me. I happily shot a few deer as the ground allowed, either for the farmer, the local butcher or myself.

The author, working at an outdoor abattoir with reindeer. Near Gol, Norway, 1980.

An inspector in the early 1960s, examining pig plucks. There is a long history of meat inspection in the UK.

Years later, without the old land I used to stalk, I went out for paid stalks with a professional in Dorset. We got along well, for he was an ex-meat industry worker too. I learned much from him, and the professional stalkers Ive met since have been founts of knowledge as well, there for the asking.

A few years on, through red meat industry-related connections, I landed an informal, part-time job culling deer on an estate in Berkshire. The mid-1990s, although only some twenty-five years ago, were very different times compared to deer stalking today, and I was quickly approached to manage the deer on two adjoining estates also. From the outset, my task was to reduce the populations to an acceptable level, as the deer had never been culled as part of a concerted management programme. The carcasses were sold to a dealer, with perhaps ten a year returned to the landowners. I still manage these three estates, along with a couple of smallholdings.