Deer Control

There are 6 species of deer in the UK these are the Red, Fallow, Sika, Roe, Muntjac and the Chinese water deer (CWD). There are roughly between 1.5- 2 million deer in the UK with no predators since the wolf and bear became extinct it is up to humans to control these numbers.

Deer management is the practice and philosophy of wildlife management employed to regulate the population of deer in an area. The purpose of deer management is to regulate the population’s size, reduce negative effects of population on the ecosystem, and maintain the integrity of other populations.

As a deer population grows it will begin to reach the carrying capacity of an ecosystem, causing issues for other plants and wildlife. Plant life can begin to disappear locally because of browsing. These local disappearances directly affect the population of that plant species and indirectly effect other wildlife populations that also depend on the plant species for food. This ultimately lowers the biodiversity and changes the composition of the habitat, region, or area until the population of deer is lowered and the location is given time to recover.

Large deer populations can lead to an increase in human and deer interactions. These interactions can result in car accidents, crop damage, property damage and much more. These species interaction occur both in rural and urban areas where population of deer come into contact.

Each area comes with its own set of challenges as to which management practice is the most appropriate and effective. These challenges have led to the development of alternative methods of deer management. In suburban area, sharpshooting is used. Other locations may use methods like shooting, or repellents to manage the deer population.