Dr Andrew Barbour
Chair
Deer Authorisation Review Panel
C/o Wildlife Operations Unit
Scottish Natural Heritage
Great Glen House
Leachkin Road
Inverness
IV3 8NW
Forest Enterprise Scotland Head Office
1 Highlander Way
Inverness
IV2 7GB
Tel 0300 067 6000
[email protected]
Chief Executive
Simon Hodge
20th May 2016
Your ref: Deer Panel/FES
Dear Andrew,
Deer Authorisations Review Panel
In response to your letter and queries dated 27th April 2016.
1. Extent of enclosed and unenclosed woodland on the National Forest
Estate and if possible the extent of land that night shooting is used:
Enclosed Land = 53,567 ha (covering 111 forest blocks), 8% of the Estate. Out of
season shooting is covered by a General Licence.
Unenclosed Land = 578,554 ha (covering 434 forest blocks), 92% of the Estate.
has to apply to SNH annually for authorisations under Section 5.6.
FES
Night Shooting = 561,934 ha (covering 415 forest blocks), 89% of the Estate. FES
has to apply to SNH annually for authorisations under Section 18.2.
FES carries out night shooting activities during the period Oct-March. Although the NS
authorisations ostensibly cover 89% of the Estate, night shooting is in fact restricted to
just part of this total area due to the lack of vehicular access, difficult terrain and safety
considerations. Lack of background disturbance at night (by FES operations or
members of the public), greatly aids night time culling operations. The increasing use
of thermal imaging equipment is increasing the effectiveness of our night shooting
activity by helping identify the presence, exact location and number of deer within safe
shooting range. It also improves safety by identifying other heat sources in the local
vicinity such as humans or vehicles.
FES annually has to compile around 47 individual applications to cover out of season
shooting on its unenclosed land and the areas requiring night shooting. The
authorisations require time and effort by FES to make the applications and for SNH to
process, inspect and authorise the applications. In support of the applications, FES
provides SNH with full justification and the need for authorisations plus a considerable
amount of relevant information and data contained within its District GIS deer
management maps. This includes identifying the areas where sheep and/or goats
overlap with deer and therefore contribute to browsing damage locally.
The scale, nature and complexity of the task of protecting the Estate’s natural assets
from deer damage impacts throughout the year requires that we utilise the full range of
available tools including out of season and night shooting.

Unenclosed Woodland: It would aid land managers such as FES if General
Licences could be applied to unenclosed woodland (92% of the Estate is
unenclosed land and a large proportion of this will be woodland). This approach
would ease the administrative burden of the land manager and the workload of
SNH.

Night Shooting Qualification: Formally trained, qualified and competent night
shooters operating within a risk-based regime could operate effectively under a
General Licence covering the 6 month period of the main culling season (OctMarch).

Effective Protection: For a land manager such as FES with significant
landholdings, a range of land management activities and environmental/crop
protection objectives, making appropriate use of the full range of tools; inseason, out of season, daytime and night shooting is an essential, effective and
efficient culling regime.
2. A breakdown of the average cost per deer culled by FE Rangers,
contractors or permissions:
Average net cost/deer by Wildlife Ranger = £74.00
Average net cost/deer by DM Contractor = £38.00
Average net income/deer by DM Permission Stalker = £3.61
Costs of culling vary considerably according to the deer species culled and the local
circumstances ie terrain, remoteness, travel time and size of forest block.
Wildlife Rangers and DM Contractors tend to be targeted at areas where difficult
terrain, remoteness, high deer densities, a range of vulnerable sites, a large cull
requirement, all four species of deer, year round culling with use of out of season
shooting and night shooting are key factors. WRs and Contractors are professional
cullers and we expect them to target their efforts to best meet the cull and reduce
damage impacts. This can mean working day or night, throughout the week and during
the winter months in inclement weather. WRs and Contractors prepare and larder their
carcasses to SQWV standards for sale by FS. Contractors provide flexibility and we can
increase the number or location (targeting) of contractor effort as necessary to protect
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the Estate. In 2014/15 WRs on average culled around 292 deer each (based on 50
WRS), and Contractors around 372 deer each (based on 40 Contractors).
Many of our WRs have successfully culled deer on their beat for many years and as
deer densities and damage impacts locally are reduced, they need to expend more
hours and effort to cull fewer deer in order to maintain densities and damage at the
lower levels. This success results in a higher average cost per deer.
Permission stalkers tend on the other hand to be targeted at more accessible areas,
with less difficult terrain, lower deer densities, smaller cull requirements, fewer
vulnerable sites and mostly to cull Roe (61% of their collective cull is Roe).
Recreational stalkers tend to visit the Estate to cull deer when it suits their personal
timetable and only a few have to use out of season or night shooting. Stalkers retain
the carcasses which they cull. In 2014/15 Recreational stalkers culled around 8 deer
each (based on 370 stalkers).
Wildlife Rangers: The nature of WR duties will gradually change from largely culling
deer to an increasingly supervisory role.
DM Contractors: The use of contractors on the Estate will most likely increase to help
meet the cull.
DM Permissions: The use of Permissions on the Estate will also most likely increase to
help meet the cull.
3. Evidence of effort or resource expended by day / night in each of the
three DMO areas on the National Forest Estate and any information you
have relating to relative efficiencies of day and night shooting:
We do not hold and therefore are unable to provide information to answer this
question. In our applications for Authorisation we provide a broad estimate of effort eg
“10 fulltime cullers, working 300 days each/year amounting to 3,700 outings”, but
given the scale of our operation this is the best we can do.
We monitor the WRs overall hours to ensure compliance with the EU Working Time
Directive however this data is limited, varies between Districts and would be unlikely to
supply the information requested. We do not ask our Contractors or Permission
stalkers to record information such as hours spent on a night shoot or hours taken to
cull a deer.
I hope the above information is helpful to the Panel.
Yours sincerely,
Bruce Sewell
Forest Management Officer
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