YOUR piece on a proposed end to the stag closed season (Aug 17) made me reflect that shooting stags will have a very limited effect on overall deer numbers. As everyone probably knows, in the rut stags compete to control harems of hinds, and younger or weaker stags do not get to mate, or only opportunistically when the dominant stags are too busy fighting.
This means that there are always surplus stags, and culling one only means that another will mate instead. The only effective way to reduce the overall population is to control the hind numbers, but there has to be a closed season for them because for part of the year they are rearing young, so there is a welfare issue.
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I know of no easy answer to this, except to intensify the existing hind cull that follows the main stag season. Unfortunately this makes far less money for the estates than the stag shoot, so they are reluctant to employ enough keepers to carry it out as effectively as is needed.
I thought your readers might like a wider perspective of the problem.
Robert Moffat
Penicuik
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