Forestry Commission - shooting fees for Red, Roe and Sika deer 1979-83
The images are courtesy of Brain Duff, Glenmore Forest, who located the papers in an old folder.
For a period the Forestry Commission trialled a procedure of culling deer by competent members of the public with fully compatible qualifications and equipment but accompanied by Forestry Commission wildlife ranger staff. Booking systems were set up and outings arranged over the shooting season. The system worked fairly well and numbers of deer were culled by this method. However it was not universally popular with the ranger staff and it also placed them in a dilemma. In their normal culling work and knowing that a shooting client was due some little time ahead they experienced an obligation to present good shooting opportunities for the clients. This may have pushed them to consider bypassing a culling opportunity particularly if there was a medal quality head and allow a client to do the job later on. His normal culling work would sometimes be less effective and the time with a client did not make up for the loss.
Should medal heads have been secured it was quite a performance to calculate the ‘points’ and then place a substantial bill in front of the client.
The procedure tailed off in the later 1980s and may have fallen by the wayside by the1990s. Please see the PDF link below for a view of the details for Red, Roe and Sika deer shooting fees.
Any memories of this scheme and further observations would be very welcome.
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