Too many wild deer are roaming England’s forests. Can promoting venison to consumers help?

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WINCHESTER, England (AP) — In the halflight of dusk, Martin Edwards scans the shadows of ancient woods from a high perch and waits. He sits still and watches with a thermal camera.

Even hares don’t seem to notice a deer stalker until he takes aim. The sound of his gun pierces the stillness. He had killed a fawn, one of many wild deer that roamed this patch of woodland in Hampshire, southern England.

Edwards advocates humane management of deer: culling deer to control their numbers and ensure they do not overrun forests and farmland in a country where they no longer have natural predators. For these advocates, deer shooting is more than just a sport. It’s a necessity because the deer population in England is out of control.

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There are now more deer in England than at any other time in the past 1,000 years, according to the Forestry Commission, the government department that looks after England’s public forests.

Officials say this has had a devastating impact on the environment. Excessive foraging by deer destroys large areas of forests, including young trees, as well as the habitats of some birds such as robins. Some landowners have lost huge amounts of crops to deer, and overpopulation means the mammals are more likely to suffer from starvation and disease.

“They’ll be producing more young every year. “We’ve gotten to a point where farmers and foresters are definitely seeing that effect,” Edwards said, pointing to some young hazel bushes with half-eaten buds. “If there are a lot of deer, you’ll see they’ve been eaten All plants up to a certain height.”

Forest experts and companies argue that culling deer — and supplying consumers with meat — is a double win: It helps rebalance the ecosystem and provides sustainable, lean protein.

While venison – a red meat similar to lean beef but with an earthy flavour – is often seen as a luxury food in the UK, one charity considers it an ideal protein for those who cannot afford other meats.

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“Why not use this wonderful meat to feed those in need?” said SJ Hunt, chief executive of The Country Food Trust, which distributes meals made with wild venison to food banks.

Epidemic population boom

An estimated two million deer now roam England’s forests.

The government says local wild deer play a role in healthy forest ecosystems, but acknowledges their populations need to be managed. It provides some funding for solutions like building deer fences.

But experts like Edwards, spokesman for the British Shooting and Conservation Association, believe lethal control is the only effective option, especially after deer numbers surged during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The pandemic has been a boon for deer because hunters, like everyone else, stayed home and the restaurant market – the UK’s main outlet for venison – disappeared overnight.

“There were no venison sales and the price was right on the floor,” said Ben Rigby, a major venison and game meat wholesaler. “The deer had the opportunity to reproduce on a large scale.”

Rigby’s company now processes hundreds of deer a week, turning them into venison cubes or steaks for restaurants and supermarkets. One challenge, he said, would be to increase the local appetite for venison so that it appeared on more dinner plates, especially after Brexit put new barriers to exporting the meat.

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“We’re not really a game-eating nation, not like in France or Germany or Scandinavia,” he said. “But the UK is becoming more aware of this and our trade is growing.”

From forest to table

Shooting deer is legal but subject to strict rules in England. Stalkers must be licensed, use certain types of firearms, and adhere to open seasons. They also need a good reason, such as a landowner allowing them to kill deer when their land is damaged. Hunting deer with packs of dogs is illegal.

Edwards said making wild venison more widely available in supermarkets and beyond will incentivize more stalkers to cull deer and ensure the meat doesn’t go to waste.

Forestry England, which manages public forests, is part of this campaign. She added that in recent years she has supplied some hospitals with 1,000 kilograms (1.1 tons) of wild venison, which has become the basis for pies and casseroles that are popular with patients and staff.

This approach appears to have been well received, although it has attracted some criticism from the animal welfare group PETA, which advocates a vegan diet.

Hunt, chair of the food charity, said there was potential to do more with meat, which she described as nutritious and “meets the purest form of that definition”.

She said her charity distributed hundreds of thousands of Bolognese venison meal bags to food banks last year, and people are hungry for more.

She recalled attending a food bank session where the only protein available was canned sardines, canned baked beans and venison meals.

“There were no eggs. There was no cheese. That’s all they could do, and people were just saying, ‘Thank you, please bring more (venison),” she said. “It’s great, because people realize they’re doing something Double positive by helping the environment by also benefiting from the meat.”

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