Deer Management Service

[sam355]

Cant wait for the day when the deer can start shooting back, all seems a bit one sided to me !!

With all due respect Jackdaw, are you a vegetarian or even better “a vegan”? As if not, you really are not in a position to be making such remarks.
In my house hold we choose not to be vegetarians, at the same time we choose not to purchase industrially farmed red meat from the supermarket. After seeing some of the disgusting processes some of the industrially farmed animals go through to grow so fast and be available on the super market shelf just before their horrifying death process in the abattoirs, I would choose to live a free life and then a sudden death.
As Rich mentioned, the deer does not have a natural predator in this country, we seem to forget that we were hunter gatherers… Think it`s best to point out that I am not a trophy hunter and neither do I support any type of trophy hunting but meat hunting and Deer Management is totally a different matter.

[Jackdaw]

Nope, i'm not veggie etc, nor a great meat eater bar chicken & fish, just a taste thing.
I consider myself as equal to all living things,( no, i'm not religious either ) shooting animals is basically a cowards way out in my mind, its just too one sided.
Really nothing personal, but i'm quite happy for deer, or rabbits or anything else to make a home in the woodland that i have my name against, and if they eat or damage something that i would prefer they didn't, then so be it. These animals are just doing what they need to in order to see another day, i just don't consider the right to end that life with a bullet to be mine, after all, what makes me/us so special ??

[Rich]

Hi Jackdaw,
Well I guess as you are not a veggie you would have to justify to yourself how the animal you eat has been killed on your behalf. You seem to have ruled out shooting, and I'm no expert but are there less cowardly ways that the industry employs?

Considering yourself equal to all living things is quite a sweeping statement. I guess you mean by this all animals, and when you boil it down, probably all mammals with which we share a lot of common attributes? We would probably all lay our lives down to save our offspring, but maybe not a cabbage or a slug. I'm not meaning to be glib, I think that your view which anthropomorphises our relationship with the natural world is interesting, it is after all a very human instinct, but as you point out why are we so special, what makes our 'humanistic' view: a one of compassion and empathy so special? Surely it is just something which has evolved to protect our species and ensure our success and the spread of our genes?


The fact that animals eat animals in nature is natural and it doesn't make nature 'cruel' that would be another anthropomorphism, it is just indifferent, ambivalent to the suffering... it doesn't have a view! So I think those of us who choose to eat meat would do well to research the provenance of the meat they eat and if they have compassion and empathy for the plight of industrially farmed animals, choose free range, organic wild meat.... Dare I say meat that has been shot and dies in an instant rather than kept in overcrowded conditions and pumped full of all sorts of antibiotics and growth hormones.

Just my opinion!

[sam355]

Just my opinion!

Just my opinion too. Thanks Rich

[Jackdaw]

Wow, so there is life out there on this forum !!

I appear to have hit a nerve with a couple of members, but to me you seem to be struggling with justifying your actions, talk of slugs & cabbages shows a complete lack of understanding, so ill wish you luck with your ventures and respectfully decline your offer to needlessly end the lives of the beautiful and harmless animals that dwell within the patch that I adore.

[Rich]

Wow, so there is life out there on this forum !!

talk of slugs & cabbages shows a complete lack of understanding, so ill wish you luck with your ventures and respectfully decline your offer to needlessly end the lives of the beautiful and harmless animals that dwell within the patch that I adore.

Well I am interesed in what, in your opinion, I am lacking in understanding, that's what this forum is about, obviously it is different from my opinion ... so?

[Wendelspanswick]

I had an offer by a chap to manage the deer in my woodland, I asked him what he charged and he said it was a service he would provide for free and if needed he would dispose of the carcasses. So in reality he was not offering a deer management service but just wanted to sate his lust for killing things by hunting in my wood!
If you want to kill things then say so but don't dress it up as a 'deer management' service.
I guess saying "I like killing things and want to use your property to do it" hasn't got quite the same ring as a "Deer Management Service".
Just to add I had no intention of taking up his offer!

[ballibeg]

Deer Management is the government's approach to deer control in Scotland. I've had to write my own plan, relate it to the Deer Management Group in my area and send it to SNH.

Think the phrase has been picked more public friendly though as you suggest.

[Rich]

Think the phrase has been picked more public friendly though as you suggest.

I think you're probably right, but is this really such a bad thing? It seems to me that there are some people that don't truly understand or who are in denial of the fact that to eat a chicken nugget or bacon sandwhich involves the death of an animal. Sometimes that animal has had a reasonable life and a pain free death, sometimes not. I doubt it would be as reasonble and pain free as the deer that is 'managed' by a single bullet at the end of it's wild free range life. I once offered a joint of venison to my neighbour who cooked meat everyday for her family and a roast on Sundays she recoiled in horror at the thought of eating such a cute furry animal and didn't see the paradox. I think there are probably 8-10% vegetarians in this country many more would be if they were aware and more connected with the process of meat production.

We call it meat production, livestock farming, rearing or whatever but it is the same end result - killing animals to eat them - 'Deer management' may or may not be carried out by a hunter with a 'lust for killing things' in my experience it is not, but I'm not sure that it is totally relevent to why I choose to eat free range, wild meat and not meat that has been farmed or reared or however the industry want's to describe in a more 'public friendly' way, how it produces animals kills them, butchers them and sells them to us in nice polystyrene trays and cling film.

[Wendelspanswick]

I agree with you totally on the sourcing of meat, I refuse to buy meat from supermarkets and tend to either trade services or produce with a pal who keeps pigs or buy my meat from a local butcher so I know where it's sourced from.
But what does annoy me are people who kill for the enjoyment of it, especially if they have no intention of eating their kill and are trying to dress it up as a service they are providing out of the goodness of their heart.

If it's a true management service I would expect the provider to survey the extent of the deer population and to come up with effective strategy's to reduce and/or control the population by all methods, not just by shooting any deer that are found in the locality, and I would expect to pay for that service.
The trouble is most hunters can't be bothered to go to that extent and tout themselves as a Deer Management service when in effect all they want to do is satisfy their hobby on someone else's property.