Improving Habitat for Fallow Deer

About three months ago I was contacted by an organisation who wanted my input on a project to relocate some Fallow Deer. As relocating wildlife populations have had mixed results I was sceptical but I agreed to look over the plans. I kept an open mind, but was prepared to ask tough questions. Further I made it clear that I was prepared to look hard at the plan to ensure the plan was appropriate and workable. I was quietly pleased when the people involved were pleased with me taking this sort of stance as they really wanted it to work.

The organisation involved is a social housing organisation, a housing trust. The problem was that they were in the process of acquiring some land from a developer to build social housing, not just that but environmentally sustainable housing. Thus this interested me also. However, the site was next to a SSSI (Site of Specific Scientific Interest). The problem was that the developer had jumped the gun and started clearing the site when they had first acquired the site this had enabled the fallow Deer to wander in to the SSSI site and were damaging the habitat. Previously the scrub on the development plot was preventing this.

Anyway, I could see that there is a real need to move the deer, but I did not like the plan that they were thinking of using. This effectively was going to be attempting to herd them like sheep. Further, I asked the question of why would the Deer want to move?

Well a plan was needed to improve the original habitat for the deer, so there will be a program of planting trees and shrubs over this winter as a start. Also and this is where events have assisted, the plan to build on the development plot has been put on hold, that will allow time for the newly replanted habitat to re-establish itself. Further, it means that by using temporary fencing the Deer can be moved off of the SSSI on to the development plot until the land is actually needed. All this should mean that by the time the building work needs to start the newly invigorated habitat will be ready for the Deer.

So what appeared to be a difficult problem appears to have some very simple solutions. While I can not reveal the location at the moment, I hope that over the next few years I will be able to film the work as it progresses.