Managing deer for climate and nature: consultation analysis

Footnotes

1 The DWG recommendations addressed in the consultation are: 57, 60, 62–68, 72 (Part 2); 5, 11, 13, 15 (Part 3); 8 (Part 4); 19, 20, 21 (Part 5); and 25, 27, 28 (Part 6).

2 This has been done specifically for a small number of responses received by email. In these cases, if a respondent did not answer a closed question (i.e. they did not tick a box), but their comments explicitly stated or strongly implied their response to that question, their response to the closed question was imputed.

3 One respondent highlighted a campaign by the John Muir Trust and expressed concern that the views of members of this organisation would ‘skew’ the findings of the consultation. There was no direct evidence of this campaign in the responses. However, if the members of this campaign submitted their responses through Citizen Space and answered only the closed consultation questions without making comments, it would not have been possible to identify them as campaign respondents.

4 Recommendation 86 of the Deer Working Group report was that ‘SNH (now NatureScot) should adopt 10 red deer per square kilometre as an upper limit for acceptable densities of red deer over large areas of open range in the Highlands, and review that figure from time to time in the light of developments in public policies, including climate change measures’.

5 Note that the online version of the consultation questionnaire had a single space for comments which covered both Question 7 and Question 8.

6 Section 7 of the Deer (Scotland) Act 1996 sets out the provisions for ‘control agreements’ between NatureScot and the owner or occupier of land where measures require to be taken in a defined geographic area for the management of deer.

7 In England and Wales, the current close season for red, sika, fallow and red deer is 1 April to 31 October.

8 The Deer Working Group suggested a close season starting on a date between 1 and 15 April, and ending on a date between 31 August and 15 September.

9 The County Parish Holding number is a unique code issued by the Scottish Government allocated to land where animals are kept and is used when reporting and recording animals moving on or off holdings.