Good thread, and a reality check for some in the UK, too. If culling + another 50,000 deer killed by cars every year doesn't make a dent right now, expecting a few hundred Lynxes or Wolves to regulate Britain's deer isn't realistic. But yes, Britain should restore Lynx and maybe Wolves anyway. - ThreadSky

richardkbroughton.bsky.social • 13 days ago

Good thread, and a reality check for some in the UK, too.
If culling + another 50,000 deer killed by cars every year doesn't make a dent right now, expecting a few hundred Lynxes or Wolves to regulate Britain's deer isn't realistic.
But yes, Britain should restore Lynx and maybe Wolves anyway.

Reposted from Adam F. Smith 🇺🇦🇮🇪

Sorry, but while I believe it is spread in good faith, I think this is a good time to call out this common mistruth in the Irish ecological community.

Indulge me for a minute, I just finished 5 years in Europe working with wolves, lynx, and deer.

"Lack of wolves" is not the problem. Short🧵

Comments

devonculm.bsky.social•13 days ago

Deer numbers have risen from 400k to 2m, since the '70s. We need to eat more venison.

richardkbroughton.bsky.social•13 days ago

Red herring. Besides the nonsensical economics, creating a market will just mean the market demands constant easy supply, ie lots of deer. Might even make things worse if deer are increased in some areas to supply that market.

devonculm.bsky.social•13 days ago

I'm advocating culling deer as part of good woodland management practice, as do Natural England, The Wildlife Trusts and the Forestry Commission. It is a lack of culling that has allowed the massive increase in deer numbers.

richardkbroughton.bsky.social•13 days ago

Ok, but conservation culling should not be linked to boosting a venison market, otherwise it will have the reverse outcome of farming/ranching deer, not suppressing them. The £ incentive for landowners needs to be fewer deer, not creating demand more more deer meat (and so maintaining more deer).

richardkbroughton.bsky.social•13 days ago

It's probably winter cereals (constant food) & milder winters (increased survival) that have mostly increased deer. Culling hasn't kept up, but deliberate (shooting) & accidental (traffic) culling are already quite high. It would be very difficult to get on top of if food/climate stays the same.

ecosystemengineer.bsky.social•13 days ago

There seems to be far too much confusion about the roles of herbivores in our ecosystem.

Why are herbivores mostly seen as a problem?
Why are the effects of them feeding almost always labelled as "damage"?
Who decides how many herbivores is too much and under what authority?

bulworthy.bsky.social•13 days ago

If you want natural regeneration in woodlands, we definitely need to reduce deer numbers and have strategies to prevent them settling in the woods and not moving around. With 5 time the number there were 50 years ago, they are the main issue in some woodlands.

ecosystemengineer.bsky.social•13 days ago

How confident are you that the regeneration volumes you "want" tally up with the functional norms of the ecosystem?

Bear in mind that all flora and fauna once co-existed with a wide range of ever hungry herbivores, some as large as 20 tons and 4 or 5 metres high.
Deer are all that remain

ecosystemengineer.bsky.social•13 days ago

With similar campaigns against livestock and with insect herbivores being genocided in gardens and croplands the long term trends for herbivores looks bleak, especially if 'wants' are the dominating factor.

Without herbivores there can be no predators and this would lead to no animals at all.

bulworthy.bsky.social•13 days ago

1/2 This isn't a campaign against livestock. We use cattle to manage grassland and manage a SSSI, where deer are an integral part of the vegetation management. There is no area of land that we manage that we would want to see the deer removed.

ecosystemengineer.bsky.social•13 days ago

That's good to hear.
I was merely pointing out the long term trend.

What degrees of openness do you manage towards?

I factor in extinct mega-herbivores in the vegetation I manage and the local deer show no signs of extincting trees.

bulworthy.bsky.social•13 days ago

2/2
Herbivores, in the absence of predators, overgraze areas of vegetation. This is what was seen after the eradication of wolves in Yellowstone. In the absence of other predators, humans need to take on that role. Managing the deer, creates a similar gains to those created by their reintroduction.

bulworthy.bsky.social•13 days ago

We're very confident that a woodland with almost no natural regeneration is not a functional ecosystem.

ecosystemengineer.bsky.social•13 days ago

I use a rough equation that a single tree only needs to produce no more than a handful of replacements over the entirety of its lifespan, and that where a tree is regularly browsed to a high level (up to 6 metres) that lifespan can easily be 600 or even more years.

ecosystemengineer.bsky.social•13 days ago

This keeps the forest structures open and enables enough dispersal of seeds to recolonise the landscapes that become available after events like glaciations recede.

bulworthy.bsky.social•13 days ago

I don't know of any UK species that can browse at 6m and not many trees last 600 years. Some trees (eg birch) have short lifespans. Generally they need a lot of saplings, to get a single full size tree.

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