DEER PEST

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXIV, Issue 12028, 21 May 1936, Page 2

DEER PEST

MANY CKO I*B IUJINEB PLAN TO SHOOT HERDS (Prom A Special Correspondent.) London, April IS (By Air Mail). Farmers and villagers in Hertfordshire are going to combine in an organised drive against the wild deer la defence of farm and village gardens in the neighbourhood of Ashridge Park. It is estimated that between 300 and 400 deer are now roaming in this neighbourhood, and in the past few months they have caused damage to crops amounting to several hundreds of pounds. Various individual efforts have been made to kill some of the deer, but with little success. Roaming mainly at night in herds of from a dozen to 50, they have jumped fences into fields and gardens and destroyed the crops. At the head of the coming drive will be Head-keeper Bob Haynes, from the Cuthbertson Estate, which runs alongside Ashridge Park. He has studied the runs of the deer and the haunts of the various herds —one of which is led by an almost pure white buck. “We are going to have one day of organised hunting,” he said, “and with the permission of the various landlords we shall try and kill some of the, deer. They are growing wilder every day. At the slightest sign of anything wrong they jump a 6ft. fence with ease." Some of the villagers are organising a round robin to send to the Air Ministry. In it they are to ask that R.A.F. pilots should go to Ashridge Park to exterminate deer. The villagers’ idea is that the pilots should use the deer as moving targets for machine-gun practice.