Deer Stalking and Management (eBook)

Lewis Potter (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2014 | 1. Auflage
256 Seiten
Crowood (Verlag)
978-1-84797-787-8 (ISBN)

Infos

Deer Stalking and Management is a wide-ranging book written in a practical style. It encapsulates the often solitary experiences of the stalker who has only the wildlife for company and considers a world that many people do not know about, do not understand and which many find alien. The author is deeply involved in deer management and stalking and is passionately concerned about the welfare of these beautiful animals. His objective is to both educate and inform. In this book, he summarizes the natural history and characteristics of all the species of deer found in the United Kingdom, assesses the environmental impact of deer, describes the type of damage they do and how it can be identified; explains why deer management is essential, not just for commercial reasons, but also for the welfare of the animals themselves and discusses the organizations associated with deer management and the associated training courses and qualifications that are available. He analyses the rifles and cartridges that can be used by the deer stalker as well as rifle maintenance, ballistics, sights, sound moderators, clothing and ancillary equipment. Careful consideration is given to all aspects of deer management, stalking methods, and taking and placing the shot correctly. He also explains how the carcass should be handled and describes gralloching, skinning and jointing, and deer diseases and injuries and accidents to deer caused by road traffic accidents and wire fencing. With an overview of firearms law in England, Wales and Scotland as it relates to deer, this is a comprehensive guide written in a practical and no-nonsense style. Aimed at all those interested in field sports, country pursuits and especially those interested in deer, deer management and stalking and fully illustrated with 149 colour photographs and 14 diagrams.

Textauszug

Chapter 2

Deer and the Environment

Deer are ruminants and, like all such prey animals, are equipped to gather food comparatively quickly then retire to a safe location to ruminate or ‘chew the cud’. This involves regurgitating some of the recently gathered food (a portion referred to as a bolus) and chewing it at leisure. This is only possible because, like cattle, the stomach or rumen (hence ruminants) is divided into four parts.

The main section receives the fresh bulk material. After chewing the cud this, when re-swallowed, is diverted into the recticulum and then the omasum (second and third compartments), where microorganisms and bacteria start their work. The final stage is the now partdigested food moving into the abomasums to complete the four-part stomach cycle prior to passing into the intestines.

Deer’s intake of water is not very high and when they do drink it is a rather inefficient operation. As they raise their heads they can be seen to dribble much of it. They get moisture from the plants they eat, rainwater on leaves, and dew on grass as part of their intake. At one time it was generally believed that roe virtually never drank, but on rare occasions during extended periods of hot weather they will drink, even standing in streams to accomplish it.

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT

Environmental impact is broadly the effect deer have on their surroundings. This includes damage to commercial crops and the natural environment, the number of deer killed on the roads and even intrusion into semi-suburban areas. Too many deer leads to increasing damage; in hard weather limited feed can mean starvation and, as numbers increase, a greater possibility of disease.

Changing habitat may encourage or discourage deer with consequent effects on densities and movement of animals. An example would be the pastureland hillside populated by sheep. Move them out and give the ground over to plantations of young trees and, hey presto, it’s an attractive feeding ground for deer. In this sort of situation landowners are probably quite correct in saying they had never seen deer on the ground before.

Since the last outbreak of foot and mouth disease, plus the financial vagaries of animal farming, there is a noticeable absence of commercial livestock in our fields, which is a further attraction to the spread of deer. Not that deer are completely at odds with other livestock: in the winter many species will forage through feedstuffs put out for cattle and sheep, and help themselves to the contents of pheasant feeders when the opportunity arises.

As far as sheep are concerned, deer, in the main, rarely mix with them if they can avoid it. Roe seem the most sensitive, but it is possible to see a few sheep one side of a field and roe browsing the opposite hedgerow. Fallow can be a little more tolerant, especially in hard weather when supplementary sheep and cattle food is available. Red deer for their part can at times be quite unfazed by sheep, even to the extent of grazing among them. In many cases their reaction to livestock depends upon the individual deer. In general, where livestock densities are high, deer numbers are lower.

Red deer on a hot day cooling off in a water hole.

Some deer can be remarkably tolerant of sheep.

TYPES OF DAMAGE

The type and severity of damage can be caused by grazing, browsing, fraying and associated activities such as groups of deer lying out in crops. Grazing is the least obvious activity in pastureland, where it usually has little impact, but on root crops it can be very destructive. Here they will not only eat the leaves and bite the tops of plants, but pull plants out, perhaps taking a bite or two before moving on to repeat the damage. With wild plants the process of what can amount to gradual destruction is not always so obvious, at least not in the early stages. Quite often it is necessary to get down on hands and knees to identify or examine signs of grazing, and this is something the keen stalker with a real interest in deer management gets used to doing. It is a comforting thought, when nose-down on a wet bluebell bank or puzzling over the decline of cowslips in an ancient meadow, that you are doing your bit for the environment.

While different species of deer have their preferred method of food gathering, all are capable of both grazing and browsing. Yet browsing is something we do strongly associate with deer, mainly because it is the most visually obvious. In an area where there is no livestock but plenty of deer, browse lines can be identified in favourite deer ‘hotspots’ along hedgerows and small stands of trees, or even lone trees. Where domestic livestock is present, even for only part of the year, their browsing activities are normally much more intense and can soon obliterate any signs of deer activity.

Just to add a little more confusion to the overall picture, there are also bound to be other plant predators, such as squirrels, rabbits and hares. A swath of grassland nibbled down neat and short on the edge of a wood is most likely rabbits; their scrapes and droppings will give this away. Wheat that appears at first sight to have been trampled in a neat semi-circle near the base of an old hedgerow tree might be damaged by squirrels. If, on closer examination, each corn stem is found to have been cut near the base and the ears nibbled out, then there is no doubt as to the culprits.

Bluebells grazed by muntjac.

Examining where fallow have stood on their back legs to make a browse line nearly 6ft (1.8m) above ground level.

IDENTIFYING DAMAGE

In the absence of any other evidence, such as actual sightings or tracks, there are three things to take into consideration when attempting to identify the cause of damage: the way the plant or branch has been eaten; the height from the ground; and, to a certain extent, the species of plant and time of year.

Deer do not have top incisors at the front of the mouth and therefore cannot nip the buds and twigs cleanly, whereas rabbits and hares leave a neatly angled cut. Characteristic of deer browsing is a partial cut with a torn curl of bark or fibres left sticking up, so the end looks rather rough. Most domestic stock, while they will pull and tug at feed, have front teeth (horses, cattle, goats) and therefore the potential for a cleaner bite. The exception is sheep, which share a tooth layout similar to deer.

Like many other animals, deer do not expend energy unnecessarily. This does not in any way mirror the human trait of laziness but is part of the need to preserve energy, which can only be obtained from feeding. So when there is abundant food deer, by choice, will feed at a convenient height. Some, however, will stand on their back legs to browse a particularly tempting morsel, or when times are hard and hunger drives them on. Of all the deer, muntjac will quite often stand upright on their back legs, especially if able to rest their front feet against a suitable support. An extension of this is pushing small trees over, even those in fairly secure netting guards. The muntjac effectively ‘walks over’ the tree, pushing it down with its chest and then browsing the exposed top. It is not that unusual to find damage above 2ft 6in (80cm) that may be attributed to muntjac.

In normal circumstances the following guidelines regarding browsing heights can be applied, assuming average-sized adult animals standing on all four feet:

Species

Browse height

Red	5ft (1.5m)

Fallow and sika

4ft 6in (1.4m)

Roe	4ft (1.2m)

Muntjac

1ft 10in (0.56m)

Trees and bushes are a favourite for deer and the damage is easy to see: buds and soft shoots bitten off, bark nibbled along smaller branches and small shoots with leaves chewed where, instead of a straight bite and pull, the deer takes a mouthful and chews on it while it is still attached. Sometimes the damage can be deceiving. Fresh, soft growth as found on young holly or ivy does not have a fibrous nature, which comes later, and the ends nipped off reasonably cleanly can give the impression that it was something other than deer. In these circumstances, if it is deer the ends under close examination, even without the characteristic tear, will be found chopped off straight and not as cleanly as, say, a hare will produce.

Fruit trees are very attractive to deer, especially very young apple and plum trees. In the first few years after planting they are often treated with a fertilizer that produces very rapid growth and, consequently, especially soft bark that can be stripped and eaten along with emerging buds in late winter and early spring. If even a handful of deer get into the habit of visiting such trees, 80 to 90 per cent of the stock can soon be damaged. Strangely, some trees of the same species seem to be attacked more than others. This may be traced to a different hybrid, so it is possible to find rows of mature trees where one or two are reduced to little more than deformed bushes, with hardly any damage to the others. When deer seem to get obsessed about a certain tree there can be very obvious signs of their regular visits and even a circle of tracks worn into the ground. A pragmatic approach is to leave the tree they like so much as a sort of sacrificial offering, lessening damage to the others and a useful point for setting up a nearby high seat.

In mixed plantations some species of trees are more likely to...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 24.3.2014
• Verlagsort: London
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Freizeit / Hobby ► Angeln / Jagd
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Sport
• ISBN-10: 1-84797-787-1 / 1847977871
• ISBN-13: 978-1-84797-787-8 / 9781847977878