SNH publishes review of deer management

The Scottish Government asked SNH to complete the deer management review after the Scottish Parliament’s Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment (RACCE) Committee took evidence in 2013 on the effectiveness of Scotland’s current system for managing Scotland’s wild deer.

This review highlights four areas:

• an overview of the current approaches to deer management
• the impacts of deer on the natural heritage
• the progress being made by the 44 upland deer management groups (DMGs)
• developing work with lowland deer management

The review summarises the progress that deer management groups have made over the last couple of years. However, it also concludes that in some places deer continue to have a negative impact on biodiversity.

The review draws on evidence from deer managers, agencies and researchers to look at how effectively deer are managed throughout Scotland.

Ian Ross, SNH chairman, said:

“I want to thank the Association of Deer Management Groups (ADMG), which has been a strong advocate in supporting, planning and collaborating with their members and has played an important role in the progress made so far.”

See the full report at http://bit.ly/2fCApgf

ENDS