This piece is an extract from our Latest from the Woods newsletter (previously Forestry Latest News), which is emailed out at 4PM every Friday with a round-up of the week's top stories. 

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DEER, oh deer.

Pardon the (horrible) pun, but deer have very much been on the agenda lately.

News emerged last week that landowners and deerstalkers are to be paid a bonus under two NatureScot trials for animals they cull over and above the numbers currently controlled on their land.

One pilot covers an area of 959 km2 to the north of Glasgow and west of Stirling, where the focus will be on lowland and urban roe deer management, as well as expanding red deer populations.

The second is 527 km2 on the south-eastern side of Loch Ness in the Highlands and will prioritise incentivising control of invasive non-native sika deer in native woodlands as well as commercial forestry.

Given Scotland's struggles with its deer – estimated to now number at a little over one million – it was no surprise to see this news positively received in forestry quarters.

Officials at Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) were among those to praise the trials, with the government agency's Graeme Pest pointedly suggesting landowners need to do more to control the population.

However, there was one snippet of information, hidden further down the FLS press release, that was even more striking. Detailing the results of drone surveys (undertaken by BH Wildlife Consultancy between October 2023 and May 2024), it suggested that all data points towards high immigration levels across Scotland.

Scotland's deer population has grown rapidly in recent yearsScotland's deer population has grown rapidly in recent years (Image: Stock image)

In one particular forest, 87 deer were culled from a population of 198 animals but a repeat survey three months later found the population had only dropped to 192 animals.

BH's Ben Harrower summed it up succinctly when he said: “Essentially within a calendar year, the detected deer population can replace itself despite high culling efforts."

A worrying thought for those of us who are determined to see Scotland's woodlands flourish.