Crowd control

As the pandemic extends its reach into the autumn, Jon Snowdon prepares himself for the unexpected

- Jon Snowdon

Here we go again. The doe season starts on 1 November. As you are all well aware, this year has often been referred to as the ‘new normal’. The change to our lives looks as though it will be with us for some time yet. Perhaps it will never change back and the new normal will just become the norm. As the pandemic extends its reach into the autumn, it feels to me that the Government’s guidelines have become increasingly muddled and vague, with advice changing on an almost daily basis.

With regard to deer management, the buck season has been severely curtailed. We were allowed back to work on one estate in June but the other estates still have not opened their gates to deer management activities. Hopefully, that will change soon but the estates that withheld access will certainly be heaving with deer. Also, we will not be able to cull the bucks because their open season closes on 31 October.

The doe population will also be high because we lost most of the all-important month of February due to poor weather, then March with the pandemic. It‘s going to be interesting and I’m pretty sure the estates that withheld control beyond the first couple of months will regret that decision once the damage has been assessed.

Population explosion