4200fps wrote: »

Rangers are too soft and don't realise whats going on.

I feel sorry for the Rangers, as with a lot of government departments they have had their budgets slashed and their hands tied by a lack luster legal system, wait and see what happens to this Bozo in Kanturk who was caught dead to rights with a Kerry Red, you could not find a better prosecution, albeit thanks to a Taxidermist who handed it to them on a plate.
The Rangers would know where there were Deer 4 months ago they have now been decimated, must be a frustrating job to be honest.

sikahuntejack wrote: »

(1) Too many hunters have deer permits it seems everyone who shoots has one, A cap has to be put on the amount of permits handed out each year. (2)Anyone who brings in more than 50 deer to the game dealer in one season should not get a permit for the following season we all know to get that amount of deer lamping has to be involved. (3) WHEN YOU SEND BACK THE RETURNS ON HOW MANY DEER YOU SHOT IT SHOULD BE CHECKED WITH THE GAME DEALERS TO SEE HOW MANY YOU DROPPED INTO THEM, IF THE NUMBERS DONT ADD UP YOU SHOULD NEVER BE ISSUED WITH A DEER PERMIT AGAIN, :mad:

agree with most of what your saying ie, the part about 50 deer but to cap permits would only hit the ordinary joe soap who only wants to do some recreational stalking and might only take a few for his own use.

The powers that be, Agri and coillte and the like, have the goal of controlling numbers of deer below a certain level.(seems like anything close to 0 will do)

But reading some of the posts I wonder does what seems to be the accepted deer management apply to Ireland, our land ownership(permission) coillte leases etc.
controlling the herd and selecting stags works fine if you have 10,000arces of the Scottish highland under your control- just not sure how workable this is in Ireland.

There won't be any caps on Licence numbers, what you might find is the minimum Acreage required start going up from the 100 Acres of present.

One shot on kill wrote: »

Have a zero tolerance approach to poachers. As in 3-4-5000 euro fine or 3 months in prison. Gun chopped and never issued a firearm or hunting license again. Anyone caught in the car van or jeep gets there gun chopped and licenses lost. Irregaress wheather they bave they at the time. Then if caught again it obviously more severe.

A couple of guys caught and severely punished would send fair shock waves make people think twice.

0 tolerance and 0 chance to explain and defend themselves.

And leave every one else alone.

That would be a great example to set, but I don't think there is the Political or Departmental will required for it, at present there isn't anyway....

rowa wrote: »

But coillte want deer gone , they are nothing but a pest to them that damage trees and cost money, so to them the poaching is a blessing in disguise.

I honestly don,t think this is the case. coillte have very strict rules in place with regard to hunting on its lands. Yes deer can do a lot of damage to trees etc which is why they allow deer to be hunted on its lands in the first place but every season they have a cull figure and its always fairly low numbers when you take into account the areas involved, as on some days you could see very few deer and you could see large amounts on another day, its a hard one to call as the deer are constantly on the move. With regard to poaching i suppose with cut backs going on everywhere and considering the massive amount of coillte lands its near impossible to monitor or control poaching, but it does happen quite a lot in forest areas. also what has,nt been mentioned here is that poaching is,nt only carried out using guns. Deer are also been hunted by gangs of people with lurcher type dogs which is becoming very popular especially with young lads and its going on all year round. This has to be having an effect on the population as theres no such interest in selection etc. ie, stags, hinds, heavely pregnant hinds, calves, orphaned calves etc etc, think you get my drift, are all targets to these people.

rowa wrote: »

What do coillte get back from deer shooting on their land though ? Apart from the money they get from lettings the deer are a nuisance and probably doesn't cover the cost of lost trees or damage done.
As for the scrap metal community out with lurchers etc, the rangers/gardai are on a hiding to nothing there also, any arrests for trespass or poaching ( if a ranger or guard was stupid enough to try to arrest them in an isolated field at night) leads to accusations of racism etc. ask any guard and they'll tell you all about it.

coillte do arrange culling themselves also. but ive read somewhere that deer are essential for bio diversity, now im not a bioligist but by this i take it that they are needed but within numbers that are in ballance with their habitat. now i could be wrong so im open to corection, so if this is true i cant see coillte wanting them wiped out. With regard to hunting with dogs, its not only the srap metal community thats involved in this and thats a fact, and the powers that be can do more about it, they,re just not arsed about it, these dogs and lads with all their gear dont walk to these areas to do this, their dogs cars etc should be conviscated. Seriously would you eat the meat from a deer thats been chased and mauled by dogs, i would,nt so i can safely assume these animals are,nt been hunted for meat, maybe for the dogs and thats if the pricks take them home at all. i,ve heard that most of the time they leave them lying around where they kill them. This type of poaching is probably more damaging than others but its all wrong and seriously needs to be stamped out.

As I have said for three seasons running on this.SHUT OFF THE MONEY INCENTIVE.It is too easy for commercial hunters to pitch up at a game dealer with 25 to whatever deer a week in a trailer and the GD is buying them no questions asked,paying whatever the price per kilo is,and selling the best parts for over 1005 profit on what he paid the shooter.I dont care how good a hunter you are,no one shoots 200 deer legally a month.Even well run European commercial consortiums do not shoot that amount.

We have the vicious circle of farmers and NPWS/Coilte seeing deer as vermin and best removed ASAP,so they are hardly going to moan about a free service more or less.The GD isnt going to say diddly,as he is getting raw material for pennies on the pound.Only people that are being the PITA are the ligitimate shooters as usual.:rolleyes: We see the damage being done,but are tied as we need the good will of the farmers/Coilte to shoot on their lands.

So whats to be done??The paperwork isnt being inspected properly obviously in the NPWS from shooters and stalkers. Anyone bringing in more than 10 deer a month,or from the same household should be setting off alarm bells.This should launch an investigation of both GD and shooter and his let as to how this let supports this many deer.
Why isn't this happening??No budget,NPWS rangers only wanting to tackle "100% sure things."And the revelant paperwork killing them from getting out into the field
And above all we need to know on average how many deer there really is out there.No point on relying on the shooting returns as it is dubious at best and under reported with the amount of shooting going on.

The simplest solution will be a simple moratorium on selling any carcasses ,bar farmed deer to game dealers for five years.That will one get the cowboys out of busisness as there is no easy money anymore.
It would also take the commercial hunting pressure off the herds to give them a chance to recuperate and possibly get some trophies maturing back in the wild.


END the Section 42s as well.It is laughable that we cannot use deer repellant scents and devices to keep deer out of crops and plantations like they must use in Europe in off season.But I would open the season in August! and close both on Jan31st

Ive been saying it for years,theres 2 much money out of selling deer.I can assure ye one thing lads its not just the game dealers that's reaping the rewards,everyone involved,that includes people at top,have a hand in the cookie jar

Farmers in certain counties do have a problem with deer in their silage ground every night eating their crop and waiting til september for them to shoot the deer is no good to them farmers when their silage is cut in august and the crop is decimated they depend on one good cut of silage in poor ground and so t have a second chance to cut more silage.

Ok ban the (42)'s but what option does a farmer have when half a dozen deer are in his field in the middle of july or august and hes trying to grow a crop of silage for his cattle for the winter.

viper123 wrote: »

They'd have to create a new addition to the wildlife act called a section 43 which will allow shooting of deer out of season if they are causing obvious damage to crops of course.
To be honest there is little you can do about it, you need to have the exemption, and you need to try not have it abused.
What I don't understand though is if I shoot a field more than once in a month the deer aren't long moving elsewhere, why is this different for section 42's in July? Do section 42ers stalk the land looking for deer to shoot or go in all guns blazing scaring off the deer on behalf of the farmer? Sounds like the former for the most part given all the conversations I've had with people holding section 42's who spend their mornings watching hinds slowly destroyiong a farmers crop from their hides while waiting on a stag to tun up which their section 42 allows them to legally shoot.

Exactly, hinds destroying the crop so whats the point of section 42s, it can only add more pressure on stags that already get hammered. As said before tags are the way forward and if a ranger checks out land that a 42 is applied for and if he does his job and decides that, say two stags are to be taken out then two tags should be issued and anyone caught with an animal without a tag should loose their rights to hunt. Having said that tags can be tampered with also so there should be no excuses or mercy if someone is stopped and a tag is not properly secured on an an animal then the same should apply. I think this is a hard one to solve lads, but i cant understand why anyone would want to take more than 5 deer a season unless their selling. 2-3 is more than enough for my personal use and thats giving some to friends etc, so again as i said before 5 should be the limit,, for a few seasons at least.

I really enjoy deer stalking and to me its not all about getting a deer all of the time, the getting out and trying is more important to me than the killing part. i,ve often let deer go that i spent time stalking because id maybe have got one recently and seeing how close i can get to a deer without it knowing im there is enough for me. Thats what it should be about, not money or shooting every animal you see. But your always going to have greedy people and this is the unfortunate part of all this.

Section 42's are not just for grassland. I have a friend that planted forestry this year and the deer were topping all the trees.
He applied for a sec.42 and was granted it with the usual condition of Stags only.
Fat lot of good that is if you have to watch hinds destroying trees and not being able to legally shoot them.
There is a need for 42's but they have been applied for and used improperly IMO.
I would think a better way would be for the sec 42 holder to have to show the killed animals to a ranger to verify the kills. Not just stags but Hinds as well as yearlings.
Its just the system as it is, isn't very flexible.