STAGHUNTING EXPLAINED

STAGHUNTING EXPLAINED
Some provocative Questions …………… with straight Answers

Q1 Deer are such beautiful, gentle creatures; why should anyone be allowed to kill them?
Red deer are large animals and very destructive to crops and the habitats of other wildlife species.Everyone, even those who wish staghunting banned, agrees that deer numbers must be controlled to prevent overpopulation and therefore unacceptable damage to farming and forestry. Staghunting does control numbers, it also disperses the concentrations of deer.But, most importantly, the presence and popularity of the Hunt ensures a reasonable cull, i.e. it is not how many are killed but how many are preserved that is important for deer management.

Q2 Could deer not control their own numbers naturally?
No. The red deer’s only natural predator in Britain was the wolf, which has been extinct here for centuries. Starvation would be the only control; the necessary cull therefore must be carried out by man.

Q3 If deer have to be killed, surely that is no reason to make it into a sport?
The ethical basis of all field sports is the same, be it hunting, shooting, fishing, falconry or ferreting; in each case the quarry would be edible or a pest or, perhaps both. As a result the animals involved will be killed whether their pursuit is a field sport or not. It is of no relevance to the hunted deer how their pursuers are motivated. (See also Answer 10.)

Q4 Yes, but why chase them? Why not shoot them so that they are killed instantly?
Shooting by rifle is in most parts of Britain the only practical method of culling deer; it is effective for this purpose. The problem with it is the irreducible risk of losing wounded deer; it is difficult enough killing deer in the wide open spaces of the Scottish Highlands where they are excluded from taking cover in woodland by deer-fencing; even there a small percentage – even with expert and experienced/professional stalkers – escapes wounded. On Staghunting ground in the “West Country” (South West England) shooting deer is much more problematic. The small size of many landholdings (which makes the follow-up of a wounded deer illegal without permission), the extensive un-deerfenced woodland and the nocturnal nature of the species all make the loss of wounded animals more likely. Furthermore, deer are only killed instantly if shot in the head – a small target and normally only taken at short range, and strongly disapproved of by the British Deer Society. Deer may run 50 yards with a heart shot and 100 with a lung shot (the largest lethal and usual target); such deer are often close to woodland cover in the West Country and – following a misaimed first shot – the deer can quickly be in cover, depriving the rifle of a chance of a second shot, and possibly escape wounded. Incidentally, all deer that are killed at the end of a hunt are shot with a headshot at close range and can never escape wounded. (See also Answer 14.)
In addition hunting ensures the survival of the fittest, which is not the case with shooting. Another point about shooting on Exmoor and the Quantocks is the danger to the general public which has unlimited access.
It must be borne in mind that the three ‘West Country’ Staghunts operate a 24 hour call-out service to deal with injured deer reported to them, as well as accounting for a considerable number of sick or injured deer during the course of normal hunting.
Every landowner on Exmoor (including organisations opposed to hunting) have used the free services of the hunt’s casualty call-out service.

Q5 Are staghunters using blackmail by stating ‘No Hunting – No Deer’?
No. They are stating what is obvious to country folk. It is the sporting interests which conserve the quarry species, be they salmon, grouse or deer. At present staghunting farmers provide an around-the-clock anti-poaching service and free access and passage for the deer to their valuable grazing and crops.

Q6 Hasn’t deer hunting been scientifically proven to be cruel?
No. One scientist’s study showed that the hunted deer show physiological evidence of having undertaken strenuous exercise. Many experts have questioned the conclusions drawn from this work. There appears to be no consensus on this view by scientists as evidenced by the Report of the Committee of Inquiry into Hunting with Dogs in England & Wales (Burns Inquiry - P.114, Para 6.38). All scientists agree that further work would have to be done before deciding that deer were compromised.

Q7 Surely it is cruel to hunt a deer to a standstill?
Deer stand at bay as an active defence strategy – not because they are run to exhaustion. Research has shown that large deer species do not rely solely on concealment and flight when attacked by wolves; they also engage in active defence, finding a suitable spot, often in water, where they can ward off attack with their antlers, or in the case of hinds with their sharp feet. This same instinctive strategy is used when hunted by hounds.
During the practice of staghunting a deer is always shot as soon as it stands at bay. This could be quite soon after it is roused.

Q8 Even if shooting wounds some deer, how can you claim that hunting is more humane when hounds rip deer to pieces?
One of the commonest misconceptions is that deer are torn to pieces by the pack; this is not the case. At the end of a hunt the deer is either lost or stands at bay, in which case hounds instinctively stand off and bay until the arrival of one of the hunt staff, with an approved firearm, who approaches the deer and shoots it at point blank range. (See also Answer 7.)

Q9 How can you justify hunting heavily pregnant hinds?
All hinds are pregnant on Exmoor when the law decrees they can be culled. However, the deer foetus gains 75% of its weight in the last six weeks of pregnancy, which is long after the end of the statutory season.

Q10 Even if deer must be controlled and staghunting is more humane than shooting, how can anyone enjoy it?
Followers of staghounds go hunting for a variety of reasons, such as: for the ride (often with the family), to see the running of the deer, watching hounds working, the excitement in horse and rider by galloping with others, a day on the hill, physical exercise away from “the office”, regular out-door activity for large numbers of pensioners, and – for some – what the French call ‘La Chasse’ (the chase), an inbred human instinct from the earliest days of the human race; we would still be living up trees off leaves and berries if our forebears had not been ‘chasseurs’.
No matter what the reason, there would be no satisfaction and little enjoyment in hunting, unless followers shared the philosophy, outlined in this pamphlet, demonstrating that this activity is the best and most humane method of ensuring the conservation and well-being of this wonderful natural resource, of which genuine “West Country” folk are so justly proud – the Wild Red Deer.

Q11 But deer must be terrified by staghunting! It must be cruel to subject them to such emotional stress?
Unless hounds are actually hunting their ‘line’, deer pay no more heed to the hunt than a grazing wildebeest (so often seen on TV) does to a pride of lion lunching off a mate nearby. It should be borne in mind that hunting is ‘nature’s way’ and not foreign to the evolution and constitution of this prey species.

Q12 Should not the cull only include the poorest specimens, instead of selecting the best for a good hunt?
In the autumn the oldest stags are selected by the ‘harbourer’ for hunting; some of these carry very good antlers but this does not preclude them from being suitable for culling; for instance, a powerful stag in his prime in company with the same herd of hinds for the third year, has to be culled if he is to be prevented from serving his own daughters. Antler growth is not the only parameter by which a deer is judged; his physical condition is even more important.
When hunting spring stags (sub-standard 3 and 4 year olds) and hinds, harbourer and hunt staff make every effort to locate and cull the poorest animals. In the case of hinds, this is assisted by the process of hunting; even an expert may not spot that one hind is over-burdened with lungworm or liver fluke, but the hounds will expose the weakness quickly; consequently, the practice is initially to pursue a herd and then concentrate on one that breaks away, as this is usually due to some hidden debility making it difficult for it to retain its place. The high quality of the herds on Exmoor and the Quantocks are evidence enough that the method of selecting cull animals there is satisfactory.

Q13 If hunting does not wound, how about a deer recently disturbed by hounds dying of post capture myopathy?
There is no evidence that deer are adversely affected by pursuit; if there were Exmoor would be littered with apparently uninjured and disease-free deer carcasses, which is not the case.
As said in the Burns Inquiry, in the event of a ban on hunting, there is a risk that a greater number of deer than at present would be shot by less skillful shooters in which case wounding rates would increase.
There is absolutely no evidence of any deer dying or being found sick after a hunt anywhere on Exmoor or in the forests of France where there are many packs of hounds hunting Red Deer.
Carted deer hunted in Ireland have been blood tested during the three or four days after hunting and have been found to suffer no ill effects whatsoever.

Q14 There are deer in other parts of the country where there is no hunting, why the need to hunt them in the West Country?
The West Country is one of the few areas in England and Wales where there is a large wild herd of red deer. The fact that the largest herd of red deer are found in an area of England and Wales where they are hunted, is a strong indication showing that hunting ensures the continued survival of the red deer.

Q15 Why cannot deer be fenced out of farmland in England as they are in the Highlands of Scotland?
The arable land in the Highlands is so limited that it is practicable, as well as being essential, to deer-fence it off from the hill. The hill ground on Exmoor and the Quantocks, where most of the deer live, is surrounded by virtually unlimited pasture with a labyrinth of roads, lanes and tracks connecting the two. The cost of a deer fence and cattle grids to separate them would be utterly prohibitive and probably environmentally unacceptable.

Q16 Since some claim that 1000 Red deer are shot annually, surely the number of deer killed by the 3 West Country packs is an insignificant contribution to deer control?
In the staghunting areas of the “West Country”, the Exmoor red deer population has been surveyed by the Exmoor & District Deer Management Society since 1994 and the adjoining area for Tiverton has been counted since 2000. The population is believed to be steady in the region of 2000 adults (i.e. not including calves). The deer herds produce about 500 calves each year and culling, including hunting, does not exceed the annual replacement.

In 1997 for instance, 150 deer were taken by the hunt on call-out and during normal hunting. The Exmoor & District Deer Management Society were aware of a further 250 deer that were shot by farmers and landowners, giving a known cull of 400 deer for that year.
The selective nature of most of the Staghunting element of the cull is necessary for the well-being and conservation of the healthy and unique herds to be found in the Staghunting areas of the “West Country”, and is therefore not only significant, but essential.

Q17 What evidence is there that, if hunting were stopped, deer in the hunting area would die out?
Firstly it must be recognised that – apart from deer in some parts of the Lake District where conditions are similar to the Highlands of Scotland – the only significant herds of wild red deer in England and Wales today are in the Staghunting areas of Exmoor and the Quantocks.
Many years ago Staghunting ceased on Dartmoor (1780) and on Exmoor and the Quantocks (1825). In every case the deer declined to near vanishing point. On both Exmoor (1855) and the Quantocks hunting restarted and the herds gradually recovered to their present excellent state. On Dartmoor, however, where regular staghunting never restarted, the herd dwindled in the National Park to extinction and has never recovered – every attempt by deer to re-colonise being met by extermination by poachers and the farmers, whose forefathers had requested the extirpation of the herd in the first place.
The Dartmoor experience above proves that significant herds of red deer can only be conserved in England with the active support of most of the farmers and landowners concerned, which is only forthcoming in practice, through the good offices of a pack of staghounds which can compensate them for the inevitable deer-damage in several ways by:

1.      Giving them a say in the management of the deer herd through their Hunt Committees;
2.      Continuing to control the deer in what most of them regard as the most humane way – hunting;
3.      Dividing up the venison between hunting and non-hunting farmers suffering damage; and
4.      Payment of compensation for deer-damage and assistance with deer-fencing in special cases.

Q18 Some people find Staghunting is more contentious than foxhunting? Wouldn’t it be better if staghunting were banned to enable foxhunting to continue?
It would be wrong and severely detrimental to the red deer herd to sacrifice staghunting on the altar of political expediency.It is interesting to note that contrary to the situation in England and Wales, in France the situation is the reverse, where foxhunting is the minority sport and staghunting is practised by the majority.
Most conservationists now agree that whatever our views on the ethics of hunting, the stewardship – utility – deer management element of the deer hunting debate, are more persuasive than those of any other field sport.

SOME AFTERTHOUGHTS ………….

Report of the Committee of Inquiry into Hunting with Dogs in England & Wales (Burns Inquiry) - June 2000
“One of the key messages which emerges is that, in these study areas at least, people are more supportive of hunting than previous surveys in rural areas have suggested. Overall, about half of respondents were in favour of hunting with dogs, with the remainder almost equally divided between those who were opposed to it and those who were neither for or against. Support was strongest in the Devon and Somerset study area, where around two-thirds of respondents favoured hunting, and weakest in the Leicestershire study area where just over a third were in favour. Even amongst those who had not seen a hunt or who had not hunted in the last twelve months, there were more people in favour of hunting than against it.” [Page 75, Para 4.34]

Economic, Social & Environmental Aspects of Hunting with Hounds in West Somerset & Exmoor, Report to the Rural Economy Working Group of WSDC – February 1999
”In the small, rural communities where hunting plays a disproportionately larger role in providing employment and recreation, a ban would post a severe challenge.” [Final Para P.80]

Baroness Mallalieu, Labour Peer
“We do not want to live in a society where different ways which serve the community well but which the majority neither share nor understand are crushed and destroyed by the law. This is our way of life. We will defend it. If you care for freedom so will you” [Speech at Endangered Exmoor’s Rally, June 1999]

Ted Hughes, The Guardian, July 5, 1997
“But Staghunting touches deep tribal springs. his attitude to the red deer has a pride and a sovereignty all of its own. And this is one way in which these men [farmers] can confirm their solidarity with the inner life of the region; they refrain from killing the deer. This protection is granted to the herd on a condition. The moment the hunt is banned, everything changes.”

A reconsidered view by Richard Course, who led the campaign against staghunting as Chairman and Executive Director of the League Against Cruel Sports
“The simple prohibition of Staghunting would destroy the survival prospects of wild Red Deer in the West Country”.

Graham Sirl, Head of West Country Operations, League Against Cruel Sports, 1991-2000
“Take away hunting and the management system will break down. Over the years, and many meetings with landowners and others, I have come to the conclusion that in the event of a total hunt ban, the deer population will be decimated. This view is shared by many, including some who remain independent on the hunting issue”.

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