A public consultation on the future management of the population of deer in Ireland has found widespread support for culling.
In the 12 months to February 2022, more than 55,000 deer were culled in Ireland. The consultation was conducted as part of the development of a national deer management strategy.
The consultation on the future management of the deer population in Ireland found that a large majority of respondents agree that wild deer are impacting biodiversity, land management and road safety, and culling was deemed the most important action to address the problems.
The consultation was carried out from December to last February on behalf of the Deer Management Strategy Group that was established to look at the issue by the Government in 2022.
Respondents were asked their views on the impact of deer on a range of issues.
A total of 1,512 submissions were received from farmers, foresters, ecologists, academics, NGOs and public bodies.
Just over half of the respondents lived in rural areas.
The results found that 82% of people said that deer are negatively impacting biodiversity.
Of those surveyed, 81% said the animals are damaging agricultural land and the same percentage agreed that they are a road safety concern.
A majority of the respondents also felt that deer are damaging forestry and they expressed a concern that the animals are a tuberculosis (TB) threat to bovines.
Asked to rank management options in order of importance, 86% chose deer culling, 78% also supported allowing landowners to manage deer.
A majority of people supported contracting hunters and gamekeepers to enable effective population management of the animal, developing a market for wild venison and extending the hunting season.
The findings were presented to some stakeholders at a meeting last week and they will aid the Deer Management Strategy Group's ongoing work.
The group is chaired by Teddy Cashman and includes officials from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, the National Parks and Wildlife Service and Coillte.
In a statement, Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue said: "For agriculture as well as our natural ecosystems it is important that we are aware of the need for sustainable management of our national deer population".
He added that this was very important for the protection of biodiversity, forestry crops and deer among other factors.
Minister McConalogue encouraged all interested parties to make their views known to the consultation.
Also commenting on the results Minister of State for Heritage Malcolm Noonan said: "The ongoing commitment of all stakeholders will be needed if we are to develop an effective deer management strategy."
Chair of the Deer Management Strategy Group Paddy Cashman said the broad consultation was open to the whole public, "which is the most important thing" it was advertised online and advertised in the national press to make it as open as possible and with quite a diverse group of people.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, he said that of the 757 individuals, 360 were "urban people", 214 farmers, 283 land owners, 177 others and the rest then was split up between foresters, ecologists, non governmental organisations, and farm representative organisations.
"So, it was broad-ranging. There wasn't any one group that represented a big majority in this scenario."
He said that the main issue is the explosion to the deer population.
"It is the big issue that has been that that has prompted this and the fact that there has been little action in the last few years. Covid has had a big impact on the numbers of deer being managed or culled in over the last number of years also.
"So, the thing has got out of control in some areas, particularly in County Wicklow where there is an absolute explosion in the population."
Following the public consultation, the public have an input into the process and the second part of the process "is to engage with all of the stakeholder groups who were involved in deer management and who are impacted by deer management and the scientific body as well, who have the scientific basis for whatever is done."
There was a meeting last week and there was "very positive engagement from all of the stakeholders", he said.
"I've met a number of them individually as well prior to us meeting them collectively and there is quite a strong desire to try and come forward with solid proposals that will be sustainable over a period of time in managing deer in Ireland."
On any cull, he said the process needs to be decided on "what needs to be done and how it's going to be done.
"And the when will have to come after the plan, and we'll have to put together solid proposals for the two departments by the end of the summer, hopefully this year".
He said that he is "very clear" that the time frame would be short and "I was very clear with the stakeholder meeting last Thursday week that we need to have proposals by the end of the summer before the next budgetary process, if there's money needed and that we can start implementation in the second-half of this year into next year.
He said it has been in the plans for four or five years.
"What we're trying to put together now is something that can be implemented in a consistent basis over a period of time", he said.
He said he does not know how much a cull would cost "because there's a huge amount of collaboration needed here and there's going to need to be facilitation and there's issues around venison and marketing of products.
"So, there's lots of issues in the background here, he said.
