200: Deer Management in Ireland with Ashley Glover

Is Ireland ready to tackle its growing deer management challenges? How will the new national deer management programme impact hunters, landowners, and conservation efforts? What role do thermal imaging technologies play in modern wildlife management? In this milestone 200th episode of Conservation and Science, we welcome back Ashley Glover, a conservationist, master huntsman, and long-time friend of the podcast. Recording from Wicklow Wolf Brewery, we celebrate this special occasion by diving into the significant changes coming to Irish deer management. From there, we discuss many more Irish conservation and nature restoration-related topics.

Ashley shares valuable insights on the recently introduced national deer management strategy, including the establishment of 15 deer management units across Ireland. We explore the complexities surrounding implementation, from landowner engagement to data collection methods and hunter integration. The conversation highlights ongoing policy conflicts, such as how to manage deer on state lands, and addresses critical issues like deer-vehicle collisions and the humane dispatch programme. Ashley explains how thermal imaging has revolutionised deer counting and tracking, making wildlife management more effective and evidence-based.

Beyond deer, we discuss other pressing conservation matters in Ireland, including invasive American mink control and the challenges of predator management for protecting ground-nesting birds. Ashley offers valuable perspectives on balancing conservation needs with hunting traditions and the importance of mentoring new hunters. In our conversation, we examine Ireland's conservation landscape, highlighting both the progress made and the significant work still needed to address policy conflicts in biodiversity management, peatland restoration, and sustainable land use.

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The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the individual participants and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any organisation. The participants are expressing their personal opinions and perspectives.

Episode Transcript

(00:16):
And so this is episode 200 ofthe Conservation and science podcast
where we take a deep dive intotopics of ecology, conservation and
human wildlife interactions.And I'm Tommy Serafinsky and I always
strive to bring you diverseperspectives on the stories that
we cover. And this isobviously special episode, episode
200. People who listen toepisode 100, they already know who

(00:39):
is the guest. The guest is amaster, first of all, the great friend
of the podcast, a masterhuntsman, a conservationist. And
I'm saying that because, notbecause you're a hunter, but because
of the. All the work that youdo. And as if this is not enough,
a master axe thrower. Best inthe world.

(01:00):
No, not best in the world.
On some days. On some days.
Sometimes I can hit themiddle. Yeah, yeah.
So, ladies and gentlemen,Ashley Glover. Ashley, welcome to
the show.
Thank you very much. And thankyou to Simon and Quincy for hosting
us today at Wicklow Wolf.
Absolutely. And this is.People who watch this not only listen,
but to watch this. And just areminder, you can watch this now

(01:21):
not only on YouTube, where isyour standard place to go for video
podcasts, but also on Spotify.So if you're listening to this on
Spotify, and I know that 60%of you are listening on Spotify,
you can switch the video. Andalso on Spotify now you can leave
the comment. So anyway, we arehere in the Wicklaw brewery and just
for the full disclosure, thisepisode is not sponsored by Wicklow

(01:45):
Wolf, but it is facilitated.So it's only fair to mention them.
If you are in Wicklow,definitely come here, taste their
beer. It's a great beer, notlike a slop that you can buy in the
shops and excellent location.As you can see, the brewery is behind
us. So just a way to say thankyou for hosting us today. If you're

(02:06):
in Wicklow or if you'redriving through Wicklow. Well, not
driving, traveling. Give himyour business and comment. Leave
the comment. How was it? Anddid you like the beer? So, yeah,
with that out of the way, wehave a lot of things to cover today.
We have a lot of things tocover. Yeah.
Those of who are for a longtime with us might remember that

(02:26):
in episode 100, Ashley was ourguest and we went through the previous
100 episodes and back then wesaid like, okay, we gonna do it next
time in episode 200. So hereit is, episode 200. I must shine
my own wheels a little bit.I'm quite proud of the fact that
we are here with episode 200.Because that wasn't given that we're
gonna do like it's, you know,folks, this is a labor of love for

(02:51):
me. And by the way, if youwant to support me, you can buy me
a coffee. Buymeacoffee.comTommysAudor is the link in the description
of the show. You know thedrill. So that's how you can support
what I do here. And here weare, episode 200 and we were talking
about some of the episodesfrom the, you know, between 101 and

(03:11):
199. What do you have there?
Yeah, so I kind of picked outa few and we talked about a couple
that we might go throughtoday. So the first one up was with
Megan Rowland who is involvedin conservation and science management,
deer manager for NatureScotland. And I thought that is pretty

(03:36):
relevant at the moment becausethe national deer kill manager has
just been appointed. It'sbelieved, it hasn't been announced
yet, but it's believed it'sgoing to be a Wicklow based manager.
And I guess Megan dealt with,you know, some of the challenges
of upland and lowland. I thinklowland deer management is maybe,

(03:59):
you know, even though we're inthe Wicklow uplands, it is more,
maybe, maybe, maybe it's morerelevant there. And she was talking
about, I think the setup ofthe deer management groups and particularly,
as you know, I've recentlybeen appointed as chair of the Irish
Deer Commission. Accurate dataand population data, which is essential

(04:23):
for informed management ofdeer. And that would be a big thing
that the Irish Deer Commissionwould push. You know, like we don't
know how many deer they're inIreland. We know vaguely where they
are. We know that they'respreading to areas they weren't before.
But we don't have, I think, ascientific approach in place yet

(04:46):
to really monitor thepopulation. I had a good buddy of
mine, Ryan McIntyre over fromNova Scotia recently and was talking
to Ryan about how they, howthey approach things on crown land.
So crown lands are basically amix of parks and wildlife and Quiltsha.
They're the state lands. Andhe, he looks at forestry management

(05:07):
there and the impact of deerwould come within that remit. And
yeah, we're just, we're at thevery early stages of putting in some
sort of measurement system.You're probably aware of the Smart
Deer program in ucd. My, whileI think the fundamentals of that
program was good, my problemwith it was that it just wasn't granular

(05:31):
enough. So for example, itbroke Wicklow down into I think 90
different blocks. And I knoweven in a small wood, you know, the
deer can be in one little bitof that wood and you can have 150
in one small folio in onecorner of a gland. And the rest of
the glen can be completelyempty because, as you know yourself,

(05:51):
Tommy, deer will go wherethere's no pressure. They're really
smart. And sika are smarterthan fallow or.
Reds, I believe, your average deer.
Yeah. And they're certainlysmarter than me. So they will go
where there's no pressure. Soif you take an area where I was up
there yesterday, it's in thetop of one of the glens here in Wicklow,

(06:13):
and we have about six or eightlandowners that are trying to establish
native woodlands. So they'requite keen on reducing the deer population
to a sustainable number. Now,no one wants to eradicate deer, but
I think, you know, you don'treally need a scientist up there
to tell you the deerpopulation isn't compatible with

(06:34):
the restoration of that oakwood. So it's always the same. You've
got, you know, a number ofconservation orientated landowners
that are happy to facilitatehunting and in areas where the population
is even higher, then sign offon sections. So just so everyone

(07:00):
understands the differencebetween regular hunting under section
29, which is, you know, in theopen season, section 42 is quite
prominent in Wicklow comparedto other parts of the country. So
I believe there are somethingin the nature of 600 sections issued
in Wicklow every year, andthey allow a landowner in conjunction

(07:25):
with the nominated hunters, tocull effectively all year round,
and in some cases cull underlicense at nighttime using thermals
or a lamp. So that is not ascommon in other parts of Ireland,
but it is commonplace inwicklow. And those 600, they're 600

(07:47):
sections, but some of thosesections have 20 hunters on them.
Like all the sections that I'mon have maybe four, six, eight hunters
on them, and relatively smallbecause you have a rota system because
the numbers are so big thatyou're trying to reduce. So you wouldn't
be able to reduce those areasunder a regular Section 29 license.

(08:12):
I think that's probably,probably fair to say. You may succeed
in moving the animals around,but you won't, you won't, you won't
be able to knock back the 30%recruitment rate that that herd will.
Have if we step back for asecond. And there are huge changes
coming in to Ireland for deermanagement compared to what it was.

(08:35):
So if you can give us youknow, again, TL Dr. Version of what
is the nature of those changes?
Okay. So I think, and I'vedone a couple of talks and presentations
on this recently because a lotof people I think didn't really understand
what the tender was about. Andcertainly if you go on social media,

(08:56):
do you know, hunters,landowners, foresters maybe didn't
understand what the tender,what the tender was for angry people.
So the, the deer managementstrategy group made certain recommendations
and then put out a tender. Andthe tender was issued by the Department
of Agriculture, which isstrange because deer usually come

(09:17):
under Parks and Wildlife. Sothat was the first kind of strange
thing. Why are Parks andWildlife not the lead body for deer
management in Ireland? Youwould think they would be. Well,
we don't know. We don't know.The tender was for 3.4 million to
hire a program manager and toresource 15 deer management units.

(09:43):
Now, if you look at thenumbers that are available and the
only numbers available arereally the co returns which are self
declared. And while they showthe trends, they're probably not
totally accurate because thereare shot illegally, deer are hit
by cars. Some people don't doa proper return for different reasons.

(10:07):
So the numbers are probably.
I heard about people, I don'tknow if they just put it like a more
than they really shot to comeacross as a good hunter.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Orthey'll put less if they shot a lot.
And I don't. And sometimes Ithink they, they put. If they're
on Quilter leases, that's anissue as well. Maybe some people
put less because they think,oh well, if I say there's a lot of

(10:27):
deer there, maybe Quilter willcharge me more for my lease. You
know, people have ideas thatmaybe don't bear out. Okay. And we
don't know why people put onwhat they return. And it's all self
declared. As you know, there'sno tags in.
Ireland and those units, arethey going to cover the entire country
or they're.
Like, so it's a national. Theywere very clear about that at the
beginning. It's going to be anational. It's going to be a national

(10:50):
tender.
So regardless where you hunt,you're going to be part. You're going
to hunt on one of those units?
No, not necessarily. No.Because it's going to be 15 deer
management units and we don'tknow what size each deer management
unit is going to be.
The question I'm asking likeis did they turn, took like entire
Ireland and divided thatbetween 15 units?
We don't know yet.
Oh, we don't know yet.
We don't know yet.
So there is a chance you willhunt on the land that is not part

(11:13):
of any unit.
Yeah, but you then might behunting within that deer management
unit. We don't know that. Wedon't know how that's going to work
and we don't know how. I wason the committee for state and semi
state land. We still don'tknow how they're going to incorporate.
As you know, certainly inWicklow, all the deer are in either
Quilter or in the nationalPark. They do come out onto private
land, onto farms, you know, atnight, but they don't live there.

(11:37):
I don't see, but I don't seethe situation where they could leave
the, some land out of being ina deer management unit because the
next thing that would happen,all the deer would, would be in that
area.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.Well look, look, look. Let's, let's
do, let's, let's go throughwhat we know, okay. First, okay,
so we know there's a 3.4million contract that hires the program

(12:02):
manager and 15 part time deermanager units who are going to do
with the data and thelandowner engagement and the stuff
like that. We don't know howthey're going to operate on state
or semi state lands and wedon't know how they're going to engage
with Quilter, Bordnemona, thearmy lands in Glen of Amal, all the
local authorities. Like I'vehad a local authority onto me recently

(12:22):
in saying, oh, could you helpus devise a deer management unit
for our land? Will they dothat? You know, with the resources
they've got? Maybe, but it'sgoing to be, you know, to cover all
of those bases will be, willbe challenging, will be challenging
for them. It's not mandatory.So on private lands where the landowner

(12:43):
doesn't want a managementplan, they can just say, no, thank
you. So for example, theymight have, there might be areas
where they want to withholdthe sporting rights. For example.
They might go, no, I have aguy. Do you know there's a lot of
big estates, for example, inWicklow that have maybe one hunter
and he shoots the deer on thatand they don't want anyone else shooting

(13:04):
there apart from that onehunter. And if a deer management
unit was to set up in thatarea, they may go, no, we have a
guy. We're going to deal withthis ourselves. But if the stats
show that the numbers thereare effectively they're a sanctuary,
what happens? Because it's all.

(13:25):
So I guess this is what Meghanwas talking about. What was somewhere
in Scotland where you haveessentially a commercial operation
that wants to have a lot of deer.
Exactly. Sporting rightsavailable. I think that's episode
119 on land and DeerManagement in Scotland with Megan
Rowland. I recommend everyonelistens to that. I think it's a very

(13:46):
good episode. So it's thesporting rights. It's also you can
have. And again, it's not thatcommon, but we have it in Wicklow.
Anti hunting landowners, someof those landowners that actually
feed deer. So they're creatinga deer sanctuary. So we have some
of them in our area and it'sreally difficult if you've got a
large anti hunting landowner.Is there.

(14:10):
So is there, Is theresomething. Is that a thing? Large
anti hunting landowner?
Yeah, there's one like you cansee out the window here. Yeah, I'll
bring you. And you can see.Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's a vegan and
he doesn't agree with huntingand he's very conservation orientated
otherwise. But he will notagree with hunting. There's another,
maybe an interim step which ismore common where somebody is not

(14:35):
anti hunting, but they won'tfacilitate hunting at a scale that
would allow you to reduce thatpopulation or even keep that population
static. So they may, forexample, allow some recreational
hunting, but they won't signoff on a section, for example. And
you know, and that's even ifthe conservation ranger goes and

(14:57):
says, yeah, you need asection, they can still go, no, I
don't want one.
Yeah, well, I agree with thatbecause it's a private land. So to
an extent.
Absolutely, absolutely.
But you know, like, I amsurprised, like a lot of the large,
you know, like when I waslooking for land to hunt years and
years ago. Yeah. I did comeacross people who said, like, oh
no, we like deer, we like themhere. Right. But they were like a

(15:19):
small, kind of like a largelandowner. You would imagine that
they have some sort of like asensitivity to those issues and understanding.
It's not about me facilitatinghunting for pleasure.
Yeah. And you would think. Butlike, I know who those landowners
are. I would have spoken tothem. I know the conservation rangers

(15:41):
have spoken to them. Otherhunters will have spoken to them.
Adjacent landowners trying torestore a native woodland will have
spoken to them and they stillgo, look, I'm still saying, no, I
do not want anyone on my landwith firearms. That's the bottom
line. Because they don't agreewith hunting or because they feed
deer or because they have aguy. Now it may be that guy hasn't

(16:05):
come since before COVID but intheir mind they're kind of. They
have a guy. Yeah, yeah, theyhave a guy. The have a guy thing
is quite common and you know Ihave some hunting permissions that
I've shot on for three, fiveyears and I've never seen a jeep
parked up. I've never heard ashot. So while they may have a guy,

(16:27):
that guy might not even livein the country.
But so. So that I suppose thatgives me. Makes me ask a question
that might be important againfor. For recreational hunters. So
provided they have a. They arethe guy. Yeah, right. And they have
a permission to hunt on theland now when the landowner signs

(16:48):
up for the scheme. Right.Because there's a lot of landowners
who goes like yeah, shoot thebastards. They want as many hunters
as possible.
They want reduce by scheme.You mean to sign up to be in a deer
management? Yes, yeah, yes.
So. So then is the guy is thathunter loses his permission?
We don't know. We don't knowwhat Quilcher have said and this
only applies to existingquilts and we've asked for some clarific

(17:10):
through the irishdairCommission. What Quiltshire have
said is existing leases willbe unaffected. But does that mean
when those leases come up forrenewal they might be affected? And
what is the situation with allof the Quiltshire land bank that
isn't under lease? Becausethat's huge in Wicklow. That's half

(17:31):
of Quiltial land isn't onhunting leases. So there is no hunting.
Sometimes they don't even ownthe sporting rights for those lands.
Really Quilter.
Sometimes they don't have anyaccess to those lands. Like there
are areas I know of Quilterblocks that there is no access. So
it's basically stranded assets.
Why there's like a privateland around.
Yeah, private land around it.So I think there's certainly through.

(17:57):
As you know I'm on the boardof Right to Know and we do a lot
of AIE requests which like FYIbut for environmental data and one
of the areas we've beenlooking at is environmental mapping
and on things like deer orfire or some of the other issues
we've spoken about the impactof commonage for example, where you

(18:18):
can get. And we'll get to thisbut there can be conflicting policy
objectives, let's call it. Ithink that's a nice way of saying
it. Where you can have maybeParks and Wildlife restoring peatland
on the Top of the hill and thesemi state forestry company draining
it halfway down the hill forreplanting for sick as Bruce and
you know that's the same hill.So I think often there is these policy

(18:42):
conflicts and I think thosepolicy conflicts exist in deer management
as in everything else. So wedon't know how DMUs will integrate
existing hunters. We don'tknow what training qualifications.
I would assume there'll be abasic minimum of qualification like

(19:03):
hcap. But as you're probablyaware there isn't a qualification
for example for night shootingin Ireland. So what about if it's
on section for lamping orsection for image intensification
equipment like thermals ornight vision. So we don't know how
that will be incorporated in.When an area has a deer management

(19:25):
unit, how will the data becounted? Because one of the things
I've seen on deer managementprograms before, we had a small deer
management program in Wicklowbefore. So if you set up a deer management
unit and you go to that areaand you've got the landowners that
are engaged and they say yes,we want emptied cull deer and you
go okay, let's start onMonday, we've got hunters already,

(19:47):
great, even better, right? Andthen they make their cull return
into the dmu. That's notshooting any more deer, that's just
shooting the deer those guyswere going to shoot anyway or potentially
worse. You go, no, that yourarea is not in a dmu. We need more
hunters. So they take thehunters from X and put them into

(20:08):
Y. There's no one shooting thedeer there before. So you're just
like, yes, they're shooting asmany deer as they shot before, but
they're shooting themsomewhere else. And that's not like
unless maybe there is. Andwhere we are today is probably an
example of that. Other reasonswhy you may want to allocate deer

(20:29):
management resources intoparticular areas, for example to
reduce road traffic relatedincidents with deer on the M11, then
you could see, okay, that'sprobably a reason to reallocate,
maybe hunters that areshooting somewhere else where deer
aren't having such an impactand move them. And same with areas

(20:52):
of, you know, where there'sbig impact on native woodland scheme
or there's big impact onfarmers. Yeah, yeah, so. So I, I'm
guessing there will be and thetender allows, allows for that. So
I think it's not going to beset in stone. And if I assume, and
again we don't know yet, but Iassume those DMUs will be flexible

(21:14):
enough to move. So if they goto an area and they go, oh, well,
you know, Mayo, for example.The IFA and Mayo are always saying,
we need more deer managed inMayo. But when you actually look
at the data, there's very fewsections even applied for in Mayo.
So do they maybe not. If forpolitical reasons they were allocated

(21:35):
a deer management unit andthat deer management unit just wasn't
seeing a deer issue in Mayo,why put it there? There's no reason
for it to be there. So thatwould probably be reallocated into
somewhere like Wicklow. So ifyou take at a top level, it's probably
going to be 15 deer managementunits, I think, based on the top
level stats. One of our guysis a statistician, Jack, and he ran

(21:59):
the numbers for me the otherweek because I knew we were doing
this. He was saying probablyout of the 15 you would have. And
this is rounding up five inWicklow, two in Tip, and then one
in other counties after that.But that's based on sections and
based on cull returns, knowncull returns of the last few years,
or it's based.

(22:19):
On the existing data. That'salready questionable.
But remember, that data issomewhat questionable. Would we want
to refocus mainly on Wicklow?Do you know? We don't know what size
DMUs are going to be. So wedon't know. Like, there's more than
15 deer hotspots in Wicklow.

(22:40):
But, you know, like, thisthing is going on for like two years
at least. Even longer when wecount when we already started talking
about it.
Good point. And probably thatbrings us on to the first thing.
What was the first change thatwas made was to extend the male season.
And that, that, that appearedto everyone that went. And I was

(23:02):
on a lot of those meetings, itappeared to be somewhat of a known
goal because if you thinkabout, you know, your regular hunters
that are going out, if they'renow incentivized or it's open to
them to shoot males earlier inthe season. They shoot larger animals,
their freezer's full, they'renot going to be then shooting the
females later.
So we covered that, like, Icovered that in at least two blogs

(23:24):
in a video. And the season islike, went from like four months
to nine out of 12 for male.Yeah, so this is like. But this was
like a, you know, like, I callit my words. It was like a lazy change
just to see. Just to like, arewe doing something?
Yeah, I think so. But I thinkit may turn out to have been a known

(23:45):
goal because it didn't focushunters on females. But I understand
at the same time it's hard tofocus hunters, some hunters on females
because they want to havetheir grip and grin stag and you
know, outfitters and you know,focus on stags. And there's reasons
why maybe, but certainly Ithink, you know, out of the last

(24:09):
hundred deer I shot, threewere mature stags and they were for
particular reasons of animalwelfare or whatever. Because it's
not making any difference.Okay. If they're inside a deer fence
and you know, you're trying torestore a native woodland inside
a deer fence, you shoot thedeer inside the fence under section.
It really doesn't matterwhether the young, old, male or female.
But in general you're onlymaking a difference if you're shooting

(24:32):
female deer.
So where I was going with thisis what is. We talk about this for
a long time already, likewhat. And it seems like we still
don't know basic stuff. Whereare those units? You know, how are
we going to deal with hunters?How are we going to deal with it?
So what are they? Maybequestion is like are there any timelines

(24:55):
for implementing this? Wherecan we. Or is it still like we talk
about this and we Hear inepisode 300 and talking about this
again?
Yeah, and actually that'sprobably. I think by episode 300
what we'll probably be talkingabout still is measurement and monitoring

(25:15):
because I think that for me isprobably the most important thing.
That's the bit that othercountries seem to get. Right. I know
it is difficult, but I thinkwe just need to have some. Whether
it's transects or thermaldrones or you know, we have the technology
now to measure and monitor deer.
That's what Killian is workingon as well, right?
Yeah, Yeah, I know Dr. AdamSmith is working on that.

(25:38):
It might be working Adam as well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so Ithink thermals are a game changer
in terms of counting. I am oneof the pro Silva guys did thermal
drone survey where I liverecently and it was phenomenal. The
level of detail. Now one thingto just mention on thermal drones

(26:01):
and again, I'm not an expertin thermal imaging, but I think if
you do the thermal dronesurvey in the daytime when the animals
are bedded inside large cicusBruce plant as where they're abed,
you know, in state forestryin, in. In Wicklow, then you're probably
undercounting because thethermals are not. They're good, but

(26:23):
they're not that good. So in Acontinuous cover forestry or a, a
thinned plantation or in gorseor bracken. You can see the animals
and you can count them likeand you can sex them and you can
tell what age they are. But Idon't believe having seen the images
that they were seeing the fullpicture on the. And I've only seen

(26:44):
what the. I've only seen theactual data on one survey. So out
of that I felt it wasunderrepresentative. And the reason
why I think it wasunderrepresentative is because one
of the paddocks next to thatwe shot 92 deer last year under section
so and the overall picture ofthe much bigger area was 400. So

(27:06):
I was like, it's unlikely. Weshot a quarter of them in just that
one little corner. I think weweren't seeing the full, the full,
full picture because the. Ithink if you were to see the full
picture you'd have to do,you'd have to do a nighttime flight
when you're seeing the animalsout in the surrounding landscape

(27:27):
when they're grazing. Myunderstanding in most of the places
where I am is they'reincreasingly nocturnal. Yes. So.
And especially with thechanges that you mentioned now when
the, when the deer season was extended.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's a, well, I don't want tosay a known fact but there is some

(27:49):
peer reviewed science on thisthat deer pressured they changing
towards nocturnal.
I believe that is absolutely,absolutely the case. So then I think
the, the big decisions maybethat are going to come up around
land management and deere is,you know, whether the data and the

(28:09):
impact assessments andhopefully that will be the area that
the DM use will focus in. Sothe, if you think of this as being
kind of a pilot project fordata management, that's probably
a good way of thinking aboutit. But I think at the same time
in some of those areas like inWicklow, there will have to be some

(28:32):
culling as part of thatbecause there are areas where the
population at the moment is,you know, incompatible with road
safety or incompatible withfarming or forestry or whatever.
So that's probably worthlooking at. And then the other area
which we don't know about andwe don't know about how it's going

(28:56):
to work in Ireland is aboutvenison and the venison subcommittee
recommendations. So at themoment, as you're probably aware,
licensed hunters can only sellthree carcasses into the food chain
direct to restaurant orwhatever. And I think it's in the
nature, three per season.Yeah. It's in the nature of two or

(29:19):
three thousand in the uk,like, so there aren't the same restrictions.
So that probably needs to bechanged. There's rules around the
chillers and larders, thatthey're licensed by a local authority
so they can't move around.
Do you think that that wouldhave an impact on the number?
I think at the moment, one ofthe reasons I'm maybe in a different

(29:42):
position, because I've gotaccess to a big commercial chiller
to hang the animals, but whenI didn't have that, that was a restriction
because if I had an animalalready hanging, I could only hang
one at a time, whereas now Icould hang ten at a time. So I think
there will need to be a. Somefacilities made available in deer

(30:05):
management units.
So maybe that's, That's a goodmoment to say, like, you know, the.
Shortly, you know, the stats.What are, what is the. How many deer
an average hunter shoots in aseason and how much? 10. So average
hunter.
Yeah, but that's, that'sprobably misleading. That's the average

(30:27):
because you've got huntersthat are shooting 400 and hunters
that are shooting nothing.
So 10 is like 10 sounds likehigh to me. I'm surprised.
Yeah. But I would know a lotof guys that would be shooting 100
plus.
Yeah.
So.
Well, so. So that's fairenough. So. So how much should they
be shooting to get on top ofthe deer problem?

(30:47):
Well, I guess that depends ontheir permissions and where they
are. And you know, often asbecause of sporting rights and land
ownership and all thosevarious areas, often they can't shoot
the deer where the deer are.So they could be shooting as many
deer that come onto that farm.You know, I know farmers local to
me, they've got a hunter onspeed dial. Every time they see a
deer on the farm, the hunteris there, they shoot that deer. But

(31:10):
they can shoot across thehedge for all the reasons we've,
you know, outlined. So I thinkthere's going to have to be some,
and this was talked about inthe committee recommendations, some
bore beer resources put intopromoting venison. We did Wicklow
naturally, a really good eventwhere we had some chefs showing some

(31:33):
of the dishes and so on. So Ithink venison promotion is going
to have to be a part of it.
So you think that that woulddefinitely change the situation in
terms of people appreciate.
Yeah, yeah. So like, do youknow some of the lobbyists, you know,
that are kind of anti deer andas you're probably aware, there's

(31:53):
been quite an anti deernarrative in some farming press and
where, you know, deer by somefarmers are seen as just pests as
vermin and that.
Or that they spreading tb.
Yeah. That anti deer narrativethat is. Is there. It's, it's probably
not, not helpful in terms of,you know, trying to promote venison

(32:16):
for the table. So I think thatwill have to be, that will have to
be resolved. I think the, the,the systems and processes need to
be a little bit tightened up.Like the applying for a section 42
is very convoluted and you'resupplying parks and wildlife with
data that they got 12 weeksbefore. And you know, it really isn't,

(32:39):
it's not an online process.You know, it's very, very, very.
It depends who you get.
And like, you know yourself. Iwas talking to you when I was trying
to apply for a section whichwas like, hey Ashley, so this is
what's happening. I said whatdo we. I was like, okay, it's, it's
not the, it's not the simplest.
Yeah. So I think it's probablyworth. I know you did a very good
P on, you know, how to getinto deer hunting. I think there's

(33:03):
probably, you know, becausethere's nothing online. There's just
like one page, the form forthe landowner and the landowner often
doesn't understand and the,there isn't really a, you know, a
support person. There are, butthey don't know who they are like
the conservation ranger thatthey can speak to.

(33:26):
Right, we're recording. We'reback after a short technical break.
And what else do we have instore here? Mentoring.
So we were going to talk aboutthe aging hunter population and mentoring
and how we introduce, youknow, new hunters.
To the big topic for huntingand big topic from perspective of

(33:48):
deer management across theworld. Aging hunters population,
kids are playing PlayStation,not fishing, not hunting and fishing.
And we are not young menanymore, but we probably one of the
youngest. When you look at theroom full of hunters. So what to

(34:09):
do about it, how bad thesituation is and what are the ways
to fix it?
Yeah, often when I go to maybea hunter related meeting or I'm in
my local registered firearmsdealer or whatever, I'm the youngest
person there. And you know,I'm in my mid-50s. So I think there
is an aging hunter population.Certainly it appears to be an aging

(34:32):
hunter population in, inWicklow. And one of the things I've
been very conscious of, thereisn't a formal program for this yet.
I think there probably shouldBe is mentoring. So at the moment
when you do your HCAP or youget your deer rifle for the first
time, you go through, get yourlicense, you're qualified and you're

(34:53):
just kind of on your own. Andif you don't have friends and family
that shoot, where do you gofrom there? Usually the landowners
are okay, yeah, work away, butit can be quite intimidating. It's
not like shooting a rabbit ora pigeon. And I think there probably
needs to be some certainly foryear one, some sort of mentoring

(35:15):
program.
Is it not already too late? Imean because if someone goes to hunt
through hcup, they already on,they already own the program in their
mind for being a hunter. Butisn't the problem is like to get
anyone to even put them in aframe of mind of actually oh, I can
do this?

(35:36):
Yeah, well, I'd have, on anyone stage I'd have, probably have
four or five people that comeout on a regular basis with me that
are either working up to doingtheir HCAP or that have recently
got their H cap and they're inyear one of hunting and they just
come along mainly to learn thefield craft or they're interested
in the type of conservationrelated woodland hunting that I do,

(35:56):
which is maybe a little bitnot unique, but maybe it's more unusual
than say being on a QuilchElise and sitting in a tree stand
or shooting on a big dairyfarm where you've got backstop everywhere.
You know, I'm shooting alongthe N11 or inside deer fences or
in areas that are often quite,you know, public access places. And

(36:19):
so the human interaction sideof it can be important. And you know,
hunters can be intimidated bycarrying their firearm along the
Wicklow Way or into, you know,the birdwatch island site or wherever
that could be.
You know, that's, that's true.And that's an important aspect because
that field craft that youmentioned, that's not all need to
look at the deer tracks andbeing able to assess whether they're

(36:40):
fresh or not. But there's alsolike a safety element, like a public
safety element and like Isaid, like an interaction of like,
you know, lady with a littledog spotting. You grow looking a
deer and what then.
Yeah, so often you do. Like Ioften meet people. Most times when
I'm out, I would meet peopleat my farm because of the nature

(37:01):
of the places that I shoot.And there are other recreational
users, maybe not, you know,they could be horse riding or they
could be hill running ormountain biking or dog walking or
whatever. And yeah, usuallyyou just get chatting and you know,
I remove any face covering.You know, my, my farm would already

(37:21):
be safe. I always keep thebolt separate when I'm going in and
out. And yeah, you just havethat chat with them and often, you
know, particularly one, if youapproach it from a conservation side
of things, it's usually a good conversation.
Yeah, I remember like one inone of the farms that I, that I was

(37:41):
hun. I was parking car alongthe road and I had to walk through
along the road with a rifleand it was just like this feeling
psychologist. I wonder if Ihave someone asking me.
Yeah, it can be challengingbut yesterday I dropped up a haunch
of venison to Bridget, anolder lady that lives up the road

(38:04):
from me because I just met hercoming out of a field with my farm
and she was like, oh, what areyou doing in there? I thought the
conversation could have wentone way but actually she was like,
oh, do you think you could getme some venison? And I was like absolutely.
I'll drop it up tomorrow.
Practical old lady.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.So I think we're going to be trading

(38:24):
eggs for venison. I thinkthat's the plan. That's the plan
there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She'sgot a lot of chickens.
So, so coming back to the, tothe mentoring, right? Because like
we were, we were talking thatyou identify this, this, this problem
that people are. Let's saythey figure out how you want to do,
do Venice. We already do hcap.Yeah, they downloaded my how to get

(38:45):
started in deer hunting guide.Hint, hint folks link in the description
as well and they done a hcupand then they could do with some
mentoring.
Yeah. And, and you knowthrough my links with Pro Silva and
some of the private forestry Imay take somebody out like to just
shadow me for a while. We'relucky. And that we've got a kind

(39:08):
of syndicate insurance and wecan add people to our insurance and
I take them and talk themthrough it. You know, if it's in
a native woodland scheme,maybe start off, show them like some
of the deer damage, talk abouthow you might approach that area,
talk about the different waysof stalking up to animals.

(39:29):
I would love to be a bit.
Of the field craft. Wellyou're going to do that this afternoon.
We're going to maybe go andlook at a couple of woods.
Yeah, well, yeah, without adoubt I'm going to learn something
but it's already too late forme. But I will.
It's not too late. You learnsomething Every day here in the woods.
Yeah, I know. No, but I wasjust thinking like just shadowing,
especially shadowing aspect ofit because you know, like how I was
starting, I was just likeactually on the hunt as a hunter

(39:53):
with the experience and Ithought it was like too early. And
then, you know, you're ashitty hunter and you're on a shitty
hunt and you're not going tolearn a lot while if you only shadowing,
you can actually see theproficient hunter at work and you
see the whole process how itshould look like rather than you're
going to learn on your ownmistakes anyway, if you are the main

(40:15):
hunter on this first one,certainly in.
This area because it's oftenvery built up. So the deer come through
the national park, they comedown through the quilter blocks and
they arrive on farmland, theyarrive on the motorway. They arrive.
We're starting to see deervery close to British Bay now for
the first time. So they'rearriving in places that they wouldn't
have been traditionally andoften. And people feed deer, for

(40:39):
example, or they create deersanctuaries or for the reasons we've
mentioned, deer sanctuariesexist in Wicklow.
They're unofficial.
Yeah. So that kind of bringsus around, I think, to the humane
dispatch program. So throughthe Irish deer Commission, we've
got 130 odd people trained up.There's actually another course this

(41:00):
month to basically takelicensed deer hunters through the
process of humane dispatch forinjured animals. Because that's.
So the scenario we're talkingabout here is that there is a vehicle
collision.
Yeah, a vehicle collision. Andthat can often be traumatic. The
most recent one I had was justoutside Ashford village at the film

(41:23):
studios. The animal went undera vehicle lost a leg, but it still
managed to run off into theback of Cadegat. There's still all
the film sets and all upthere. A very difficult place. There's
housing. Tracking an animaleven with a dog and a thermal scope

(41:43):
at night is very challenging.
Yeah. And this is for peoplewho might not realize if the deer
gets hit by a car, it's notlike it's just laying around there.
It's like, oh, my leg. It moves.
And there's often. There'sstill unresolved gray areas. What
happens, for example, withhumane dispatch on third party lands?
Like, do you know, often thegarda vehicle is called away. They

(42:08):
can't spend the whole eveningthere tracking an animal. So you're
kind of left on your own. Itcould be up on the Sugarloaf. It
could be, you know, an animalunder a bus, just to take a step
back.
So the whole program, the ideaof the program run by Irish Deer
Commission is there is avehicle deer vehicle commission collision

(42:29):
or there is some other issuewith the injured deer. And then those
hunters who completed thecourse, there's a list, as I understand
the list of their, thosepeople certified for humane dispatch
that is sent to.
Guardia Chicono Slantracertified, that's with the Garda.
So what you do is the public,you call the Garda station. The Garda

(42:52):
station have the list.
Yes. And then Guarda call thehunters as like hey, we have a problem
with a deer. And then theyknow what to do so they show up.
And the key consideration ispublic safety. You know, because
you're often on a busymotorway or you're in an area of
housing or you know, we've hadhumane dispatch call outs in school
yards. So it can be, you know,it can take a little bit of consideration

(43:19):
and you know, as chatting toTerry who does the, the OPW humane
dispatch for the Phoenix ParkHerd, you know, sometimes it's simple
things like for exampleopening the two door vehicles to
give a bit of like privacyshelter. Yes, yeah, yeah. Unfortunately
an increase because of thisarea and, and again it's very much

(43:42):
most humane dispatch calloutsare in Wicklow and in this area increasingly
now in West Wicklow as well.But mainly, mainly along the N11
and up into Dublin. Now youknow, we're starting to see deer
up in Carrick Mines, Dundrum.
But I mean like even likeanywhere where there are deer, they,
this, this thing can happenand then it's like what do you do?
Because like most, most of thetime guards are not prepared to like,

(44:05):
they don't know what to do.
They've been talking to therailway service as well because they
have a similar issue with youknow, deer on the tracks. And again,
you know, if it's say a, abusy commuter rail like say in Kilcool
here and you know, if there'sa, an injured animal at the side,
do they run the train in themorning past an injured animal? How

(44:27):
did they get the humanedispatcher to that location? Because
it may not have road access.So there's a little bit of planning,
you know, I'd like a moreengaged transport infrastructure
island policy on deermanagement, particularly on the larger
motorways where the speeds areat higher. Crash. You know, as one

(44:49):
of the guys there said, oh, doyou know Ash, we're not so keen on
putting up high seats in thoseareas to facilitate the safer culling.
But we will put up signs. AndI was like, deer can't read signs.
So I think there's so many goslow for deer signs in Wicklow in

(45:09):
this area that they're justpart of the landscape now. Everyone
ignores them. They don't slowdown if they see one of those signs.
So locals know now, locals doknow where deer are crossing and
you can see we're going to goand see some of them later of the
hotspots for humane dispatch.And there's huge holes where there's
herds crossing some of theareas all the time now. And they

(45:32):
tend to be in areas that arestate or semi, state owned where
there is no culling allowed.So if you don't have culling in,
for example, a big Quilterblock or a Parks and wildlife reserve,
the herd grows by 30% a year.It's bang on the motorway. You're
gonna have a problem. So I'dlike to get out ahead of some of

(45:54):
those problems and, you know,cajole or, you know, hope that as
part of deer management thoseagencies would have a plan. But currently
it's more reactive. It's likethe guards call you at 3:00 in the
morning. There's been a deerhere in Glen De Downs. There's been
a deer hit at Coins Cross.They would be my most common. Usually

(46:14):
it's one or the other. Thereare other, a few other areas up in
the hill around Glen Ely,around Carrick Mines and up around
kind of toward Johnny Fox'skind of area where you'd have a lot
of call outs. So the localsknow. But unfortunately not everyone

(46:35):
driving those roads is localsand they don't know to slow down
on some of those bends or someof those off routes.
Oh, but you know, like I, Ithink that. And I'm gonna put my
heads up as well, that up upuntil the, the moment where I started,
you know, really lookingcloser at deer and whatever. These
were the signs. Like, oh yeah,there's a sign that you're like,
what are you supposed to do?Yeah, and, and, and just recently

(46:55):
we were driving from, fromCork down to Kerry through this new
newly open road past Makroom.And I remember on one of the episodes
when I was talking with, withDamian Henningen from, from IHD Commission
and he mentioned that oncethat, that that road was open, there
was like absolute carnage.There was like a, like a number of

(47:16):
collisions in one day becausethose deer just didn't know. Like
all of a sudden the roadappeared and so we were driving not
long ago and I was saying tomy fiance, like, look at those signs.
You know, like, you justreally pay attention and slow down
because the deer can be here.And, and I don't think that a lot
of people know that there,that there's, like, what to do if
they see that sign.

(47:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I thinkthere is a thought maybe in some
of the agencies that fencingis a solution to, you know, deer
management. You just fencethem out of the areas you don't want
them to be. But the realityis, like, I spend most of my time
shooting deer inside fences.So deer get under fences, over fences.
Fences are not maintained,like, with the best will in the world.

(47:58):
Generally, the fence may bemaintained by a forester in a woodland
scheme for maybe four years.After that, it's just left and they
become deer sanctuariesbecause there's no humans inside
and there's no dogs inside.There's just deer. So I think there
needs to be maybe a programfor deer management specifically

(48:20):
inside fences. And, you know,putting fences alongside motorways
just doesn't seem to work. Ithink there needs to be, because.
They'Re always going to breachthe fence.
They're going to get under it,they're going to get over it and
they're going to get aroundit. And, you know, if they want to
be on the other side becausethe grass is greener or the hinds
are on the other side, theywill go on the other side. And it's,

(48:41):
you know, it's not the deer'sfault. There's, you know, the, the
environment here is justperfect for Sika. And they've just
got so much cover in those bigblocks of Quilter with no pressure.
They love it. So, yeah, onething that has made humane dispatch
a lot easier is thermals. So,for example, I'll get a call that,

(49:03):
you know, Wicklow GardaStation will ring and say, oh, listen,
Ash, there's been a deer hitat Coins Cross Apple Green. That's
the main area where they gethit. And they will say, oh, can you
go now? That's a huge area.There's like maybe four roads joining
into that one roundabout. It'sall covered in gorse and, you know,
you can't see a deer with alamp. And you're like, okay, where

(49:26):
is it? You know, an injureddeer, you know, even if it's mortally
injured, can still run 150meters. If it's, you know, just got
a leg ripped off, it can go.
Yeah, exactly.
Indefinitely.
Like we Were talking earlierand this is also what I heard. Like
deer can have like a legsbroken, pelvis broken and it still
moves around. Like this isnot, this is not like human who would

(49:48):
just lie around and be sorryfor himself.
The handheld thermals havebeen a game changer in terms of,
of identifying where theanimals are. You can really what's
the situations with.
The thermals right now?Because they were. There were like
a lot of discussions about it.A thermal, is it part of a rifle,
is it or a firearm or no.
So I think it's worth, it'sworth listening back to Liam's podcast.

(50:11):
You did with Liam Nolan of theDeer Lines. I think that covered
this ground well. There hasn'tbeen much in the way of changes that
I'm aware of. IrishDeerCommission have a position on the
firearms user group. So wewould probably be aware if there
were dramatic changes.
How is that going?

(50:33):
Again, there hasn't reallybeen much. There hasn't been much
change since. I think Liam'supdate is probably as good as you're
going to get. I haven't heardof any significant changes. Some
local changes. One that Imentioned is that for night shooting
now on deer licenses inWicklow, the Wicklow superintendent

(50:54):
is asking hunters to notifyWicklow Garda Station before they
intend to shoot at night. Butin my mind that's. Well, it doesn't
really apply to me becausemainly I'm doing my humane dispatch
callouts with a shotgun, notwith my deer rifle, which is what
that term is on. You would trybecause of the public safety issue

(51:15):
to use a shotgun, not a rifle.
But sometimes explain to uswhy shotgun is better for public
safety.
Because the range is small andyou don't have the same. Yeah, it's
just a range like. So if theanimal is on the ground, it's easier
to use the shotgun. If it'sreally incapacitated, then a humane

(51:39):
bolt would be good. But mosthunters don't have them. So we do
have some members that dobecause of their day job, if they're
in veterinary or, or butcheryor whatever. But I just find the
shotgun is the choice forhumane dispatch. But generally when

(52:00):
you attend you will have yourrifle and your shotgun because you
don't know the animal willoften, you know, I've done three
hour tracking up in Quilterwoods where the animal was nowhere
near where, you know, it wasmaybe a kilometer away from where
it was hit. And you know, sohaving a tracking dog as well is
useful. But the thermals are Agame changer for identifying where

(52:22):
an animal is. They're good nowto nearly a mile. So I use thermal
a lot for doing landownerassessments. So a landowner would
come and say, oh, Ash, we'rethinking of planting a native woodland
scheme. Do you think we need afence? And generally my advice is
in Wicklow. Are you inWicklow? Yeah, well, if you're in

(52:45):
Wicklow, you know, and howclose are you to park? How close
are you to a large Quilterblock? That would be, you know, and
then you can generally look onGoogle Maps and you can do an assessment,
but it's always good to groundtest it. And, you know. So we have,
through Rewild wicklow, we'vegot 50 camera traps through Adam
Smith's program. Yeah. So Ineed to talk, I need.

(53:06):
To talk, talk to him, Talk to.
Adam again because he's like,he's, he's.
Doing like unreal program thatthey were doing this camera trapping
in Ukraine and Belarus, Ithink before all the things went
south there. And he was like,he's buying stuff from his own pocket.
Buying cameras and puttinginto this program to run is like

(53:29):
an incredible dedication.
Talk to him about the snapshotprogram because that's a program
that I'm involved with here inWicklow. We've got about 50 camera
traps and I think it'd be goodto see year on year the data from
that. And it will alsoprobably inform some of the, the
decisions around the DMUs. SoI think that's a good program. It

(53:50):
gives a much more granularpicture, whereas the thermal drone
gives maybe a, you know, aslightly more landscape level. But
then by the time you get tolike dividing Wicklow into, you know,
90 squares, it, it kind of islike, oh, well, yeah, the deer are
up there and then they comedown there. It's, it's, it's not,

(54:11):
it doesn't make for really anyactionable data.
Should that data consist ofthe, like you said, movement of the
animal either, either throughthe day or through the season?
Yeah, I, I like. You see acompletely different picture through
thermals. So, you know, I knowlandowners where do you know, they

(54:32):
were like, oh, Ash, we've gota few deer. And they, I said, how
many deer have you got? What'sthe most you would ever see? And
they would say, oh, maybe 30.But then, you know, with the thermals
I go, no, it's more like 130or 230. So yeah, for, for, for doing
counts at night with Thermalsis the way to go. And it's fairly

(54:55):
consistent. You know,certainly the hinds tend to stay
in the same areas. So you canget a good. You can get a good picture
by sometimes going once.
So when you said that thethermals are game changers, so the
game changer is really theimprovement of the thermal. Any changes
in the legislation thathappened because those changes didn't
happen, we established that.

(55:15):
So. So to just be clear thatyou're talking about image intensifying
devices that go on the rifle,that's a license farm. You have to
get a separate license forthat. But the gray area at the moment,
the area that's unlicensed,effectively, is the pulsar that you
hold in your hand. But I findthem very useful in terms of doing
my humane dispatch callout. IfI'm working on a section 42, for

(55:40):
example, culling inside fenceson a native woodland scheme, or with
the initial approach, whenyou're talking to a landowner and
they're going, do we need afence or do we have a deer problem?
And I'm like, well, what is adeer? You know, and most landowners
are. Don't want to eradicatedeer. They just want to have a population
of deer that is in keepingwith the restoration of that land.

(56:03):
I noticed that most of thedeer, not deer landowners, they usually
know whether they have deer or not.
Yeah, they usually do, butthey wouldn't know.
How bad is it sometimes?
No, not how bad it is, but howmany, like, how many deer are crossing
their property, for example,do you know? I've certainly been

(56:24):
with landowners that had noidea. They were just completely oblivious,
as recent as yesterday. So.And when you go and you walk the
boundary with them with thethermals, and these can be places
that have active deermanagement that maybe have a hunter
that comes once a week or, youknow, every two weeks or whatever,

(56:44):
they can still havesignificant amount of deer that they
would not be aware of becausethey're not seeing the difference
between day and night. Andwith Sika, if they go nocturnal.
So, yeah, I think humanedispatch is a good one to highlight.
And then we were just chattingto Quincy on the way in from Wicklow
Wolf. One of the otherprograms that I'd be quite keen on

(57:06):
getting implemented, maybethrough the new biodiversity action
plan that Wicklow CountyCouncil are putting in, is mink trapping.
Wicklow has significant mink.Invasive American mink.
Where do they tell us? Wheredid they come from?
There were a number of furfarms in the past in Wicklow and
escapes from there. Yeah.
Where do you escape? So werethey just releases? Because we all

(57:31):
heard about the animal rightspeople releasing minks.
Yeah. Think that's onenarrative, but I would say a lot
are just, yeah, they justescapes. So. Yeah, anyway, however
they arrived, they're here.You know, I know one of my neighbors
reported five on a sea trappool behind my house.
Tell us what's the problem?Like why mink is bad.

(57:52):
They really just, you know,will decimate the, the riparian corridor.
They will take pretty mucheverything from, from the nesting
birds to the frogs toeverything. So, yeah, they are a
perfect killer.
They are American minks,meaning they are.
Invasive purely for the furtrade. And now there's no. The last

(58:16):
mink farm in Ireland closed, Ibelieve last year, so there are no
more coming in. But there areso many in the environment. So there's
one really good program I knowthat Quincy's involved with and that's
the Liffey Weir program. Andthat's from Island Bridge down to
Grand Canal Dock where thereis a mink trapping program at the
weirs. And that's been wellestablished. I think it's been going

(58:37):
15 plus years. And. Andthere's a couple of other mink trapping
programs done with EIPprograms. I know the Waders program
has one, but I think we could,we could have one in Wicklow maybe
on. Initially along theMurrah, up the Var Tree, the Dargle,
some of our more sensitive seatrout spawning areas. And obviously

(59:00):
it will help a lot with theground nesting birds.
Do you know what are numbers?Like how, how quickly they're. They're
spreading, how quickly they're reproducing?
No, I did some test trapping afew years back, but that was on request
of landowners. So, you know,that's art. Like if the landowner
is seeing mink and you put ina mink drop, you're going to probably
catch mink. Mink. So I thinkwe probably need to be a little bit

(59:25):
more, you know, just work ourway through. Obviously do it on request.
Where a landowner is seeingmink. The Quincy reported mink up
at the reservoir in Roundwoodlast week. So we know they're here,
they follow those corridors.And I think if we want to be, certainly,
you know, I'm very passionateabout sea trout conservation, so

(59:49):
I'd like to focus on the SeaTrout Cafe. But I would also think,
you know, the Bird WatchReserve in Kilcool, other areas like
that could benefit from a minktrapping program. The new mink traps
are connected. They have a SIMcard and they actually tell you when

(01:00:13):
they are flipped. So that foranimals. Yeah. So any bycatch, say
for example you trapped a pinemarten or somebody's kitten or whatever,
you can then go and releaseit, but you don't need to check.
I know people who would argueto not release the kitten either.
Yeah, yeah. So that's another.And you know, I do see, obviously

(01:00:33):
when I'm out at night onsections, I see a lot of feral cats.
Really?
How many?
Yeah, a lot in some areas. AndI think it, you know, particularly
in areas like native woodlandwhere I think they are having a,
a very negative impact onwoodcock in particular. Like woodcock
are very vulnerable and theymust be vulnerable to feral cats.

(01:00:57):
I was, you know, like I wassurprised like on one of the estates
that I noticed, you know,there was like, I was, I was there
for like a, you know, repeatednumber of times and the number of
the cats, like they wouldn'tprobably qualify as quote unquote
feral. Yeah, but these are,these are like a house cats who are
getting out of the house.Yeah, it's like how many of those

(01:01:19):
are just walking around?There's just people who live there.
It's like, oh, this is notgood. Yeah, there's a lot because,
because this is always like,oh, this is like one cut. Like. Yeah,
but the neighbor has a cat andthere's a cat and there is a cat
and all of a sudden you have15 cats.
Yeah, yeah. So, you know, it'sprobably worth having another chat
with pork brain about theconservation work they've been doing

(01:01:41):
with ducks, for example, onthe duck tubes and certainly, you
know, fox and predator controlwith gray crows and so on is something
that, do you know, it'sdifficult enough like when you're
out say, you know, I'll giveyou an example of a farmer up the
road here and we are managingquite a significant deer issue there

(01:02:09):
where there's a lot of deercoming down, down through the sick
of spruce blocks into thesmall native woodland adjacent to
his farm. If we were then toshoot the foxes at the same time,
we wouldn't shoot any deerbecause once you take that first
shot, there's no deer coming out.
You know, I was talking witha, this is a guy from the UK who

(01:02:33):
is protecting curio nestingsites and he's very, very much into
predator control and he's aconservation minded person. And people
who, you know yourself andpeople who are legalist know that
I wrote a blog and hadepisodes of the podcast about predator

(01:02:53):
Control and how important thatis from the conservation perspective.
And then that there is, youknow, misunderstanding from the public
who just thinks like, oh,you're just, you know, just kidding,
you want to kill stuff andlike, whatever. But so I have a conversation
with him and he said somethinglike, you know, sometimes I desperate,
sometimes I wondering if we'renot wasting time because everybody

(01:03:16):
is completely on the same pagethat this is, you know, break glass
temporary solution now so thecurlew and the lapwing and so on
will survive next three years.And everybody says like, yeah, this
is not the be all end all. Weneed this, we need, you know, habitat.
La da da da da. But nothing ishappening. So it seems to me like

(01:03:39):
there's no exit strategy.
I hear you. As you know, I'mon the board of Right to Know and
we submit a lot of FOIs andAIE requests and a huge area that
we've been submitting recentlyhas been on hen Harrier and yeah,
you wouldn't be optimistic. SoI think, yeah, there needs to be
a sea change there and theinvestment and all of the various

(01:04:02):
stakeholders have to be onboard because the scale of what would
be needed to.
Yeah, exactly.
And Harrier habitat is justsuch a, such a, a significant project
and a lot of that land isstate land. So just do it already.
But that's a part. Yeah, butthat's a part of it. Right. It's
also like, oh, we have theseoverabundant meso predators or you

(01:04:26):
know, whatever you want tocall it, generalist predators, crows,
foxes, also badgers funnilywhich are protected but they also
have an impact on garden stingbirds. And it's like, oh, because
intensifying farming, intensefarming practices are supporting
them. And so like, but whatyou gonna do? Right? Like we, I don't

(01:04:47):
see us de. Intensifyingfarming anytime soon. Yeah, so it's,
it's, it's a tough one.
It is a tough one. Yeah, one.I was chatting to the ecologist for
Air Grid recently about, youknow, whether there's potential to
do some restoration under thepower lines because I think a lot
of the wildlife corridors,you're probably aware of this research

(01:05:07):
in the states that wolveshunt. We have to talk about wolves
because we're Wicklow wolf.The wolves hunt more successfully
under power lines, they found.And I hunt more successfully under
power lines because both sidesof that power line is probably a
sick of spruce plantationwhere you can't hunt in. So I think

(01:05:28):
air grid and ESB in terms ofwhat they're looking at they're looking
at case studies from Belgium,I believe, at the moment of how to
manage biodiversity in thosewildlife corridors, because they're
very important wildlifecorridors. So I think there are a
lot of people coming at thisfrom different angles. Maybe they're
just, you know, with podcastslike yourselves, it's, you know,
good to get them a voice sothat they even know who's doing what.

(01:05:52):
And that's one of the things.I've just joined the steering committee
of Natural Capital Ireland andtwo of the projects we're going to
be looking at there. One isgoing to be a kind of who's who in
terms of conservation inIreland because that doesn't exist,
so you often don't know thecontact for different projects. And
the second is to startbuilding a database of shovel ready
projects. Whereas that mightbe, say a barrier removal project

(01:06:15):
for sea trout or it could besomething like a peatland conservation
program in the uplands.
Tell us about the NaturalCapital Ireland, because that's a
yes.
I've just joined, I wasinvited to sit on their steering
committee. So it's all new tome, but I think those two initial

(01:06:37):
projects will probably, I havea background in data, so I think
that's where I'll probably getinvolved. I think the idea of improving
mapping and monitoring isprobably where they probably add
the most value. So I thinkwhere Ireland has probably been good
in the past is mapping thegood stuff. If you go on social media

(01:06:59):
you're like, oh, Bordne Monahave restored this bog in the Midlands.
And that's great. But whatthey're not saying is, oh yeah, but
we have one up the road thatwe're pumping dry because we might
put a wind turbine base there.And wind turbines don't like to get
their feet wet. So you mayfind, I think that, you know, mapping
of the stuff that's maybe notso good is probably as important

(01:07:20):
or maybe more important.
It's probably more important.
Probably probably moreimportant. I think that's something
we're seeing in marinehabitat. It can be, oh yeah, we're
doing this cleanup here, butover here, here and you know, it's
not so good. Or, you know, theexample I always give is parks and
wildlife doing peatlandrestoration on the top of the mountain
and the, you know, forestrycompany draining it for sika spruce

(01:07:43):
at the bottom of the mountain.And I like, you know, it's both peat
soils, they're hydrologicallyconnected. You know, how can you
think that, you know, or theconflicts between commonage, you
know, that would be a commonthing. And we've talked about this
in episode 100, where youlike, the largest cost for peatland

(01:08:04):
restoration in the uplands washelicoptering in sheep fencing. So,
you know, but how do youchange, you know, what is an entrenched
way of sheep farming in theuplands? You can't. The common age
rights exist. You gotta kindof work around them. And you know,
okay, it might cost a lot ofmoney to helicopter up sheep fencing,

(01:08:24):
but if that's what you gottado if you want to restore the peatland
land, maybe that's what yougotta do. Because otherwise the peatland,
you know, it's not gonnarestore itself. That's the reality.
I don't remember the number ofthe episodes, but one of the episodes
that happened between hundredand this one was Khan Project, where
huge part of that wasrestoration of the peatlands. And
that was, you know, the verypositive vibe I got from this is

(01:08:48):
that a lot of theselandowners, once they were shown
things and, you know, like,the big problem is always like, oh,
there's a project that takesfour years and then what? And a lot
of these landowners, theydidn't want to get people and contractors
to work because they want tobe taught how to do this, because
they want to continue to dothat. It was like, wow, that was
great. And it was like, no,no, no, no, I, I, I'm going to do

(01:09:11):
it. You show me how to dothis. Because I. So that was, you
know, there are good things happening.
I know one of the things whenRyan McIntyre came over from, you
know, the Crown alliance inCanada, and he was looking at the
situation in Wicklow, he wassaying a big element of how they
improved native woodlandrestoration and the negative impacts

(01:09:31):
of their commercial forestry,because they have commercial forestry
on state lands there as well,was getting the contractors involved.
And he said it got to thestage where the contractors were
calling out bad practice andthey wouldn't go to the sites. So
we're a ways from that. And Ithink if you go up to, we can do

(01:09:54):
that this afternoon if youwant, and we can go and look at some
big Cicus Bruce plantationswith basically no visible mitigation.
The silt from that is runningoff into the nearest watercourse
and they're often blue Dotcatchments, so they're on paper our
most protected. But yet thestate is its policy conflict. And

(01:10:18):
I think resolving some ofthose policy conflicts are the bigger
issues to that we're not goingto fix today. But yeah, I would say
that's if I was the newBiodiversity Minister. That's what
I'd be looking at. Those areasof policy conflict where somebody's
trying to move forward interms of conservation. They're maybe

(01:10:40):
restoring a piece of peatland,but the neighbors are extracting
it for horticultural mushroomfarming or for wind farm turbine
basis or, you know, and youknow, trying to get things sorted
on state land I think is maybean easier ask because how are you,

(01:11:01):
like, how are you going to aska farmer to re wet their land when
you're the state and you'redraining yours? It just so I think,
you know, the state needs toget its own house in order first.
And do you think it's going tohappen with the Nature Restoration
Law now? They writing up planshow to implement that and there's
like a rewetting, for.
Example, wedding is a hugething through. Right to know. We've

(01:11:24):
recently had some requests inabout land designation. There is
a designation board and itshearings were always in secret and
they never published any ofthe ecological reports related to
them. When they did releasethem under foi, they were highly
redacted. So we're stillappealing that at the moment. So
I think there is a lot of, alot, you know, a lot of times when

(01:11:47):
there's problematic orsensitive things, as you've mentioned
with bovine tb, people don'twant transparency for whatever reason
and they're like, oh, if itwas transparent then it would make
our job more difficult. And itmight, it might and we have to accept
that. But I think, you know,if we are to resolve some of these
big wicked problems likenitrates derogation or replanting

(01:12:12):
on steep peat or hen harrieror freshwater power muscle, you know,
some of these big things. Andhonestly it's not, these are not
options really. These arethings where we have infringement
actions from Europe againstus. So like we're actually, we have
to do it. So I think, yeah,there's a, there's a body of work

(01:12:34):
to be done on the policy sideand you know, the funding is going
to have to be allocated to dothat. Whether it's, whether it's
in deer management, peatlandrestoration here, one of the biggest
challenges will be, I think,forestry on peat. And we thought
that's a big issue.
So to wrap this up, what'syour view on future of deer hunting?

(01:12:57):
Because this is one of theepisodes again that we talk about,
about future of hunting. Whatdo you think is the future of deer
hunting in Ireland? What arethose changes? When do you think
they're going to beimplemented and then, then more broadly,
how do you see the future ofnature and nature restoration, biodiversity
in Ireland.
Over the coming years? In someways the decision of the government,

(01:13:24):
even though it seems a bitkind of haphazard with, as we said,
maybe an own goal initially ofextending the mail season, not really
focusing on the data side ofthings, which I think, you know,
is, is missing a legacy issuewhich hopefully will be resolved
going forward. I think that's,that's got to be key. It's got to

(01:13:47):
be data driven in terms ofdeer management, partly because there
won't be the resources to doit otherwise. And then in terms of
getting more people intohunting, I think, yeah, the mentoring
scheme is not a bad idea. How,how deer management works on the
detender, we don't know yet.One of the ideas that I put forward

(01:14:12):
on the subcommittee that wasdealing with public and semi state
lands was the idea, you know,the way IFI have seasonal bailiffs,
so in the spawning timeparticularly they bring on seasonal
bailiffs and they basicallydeputize them and go, you're an IFI
guy now and you can go out andyou can hand out tickets for not

(01:14:33):
having your license or you caninvestigate pollution, incidents
of stuff. There may be theoption to do that in terms of mink
eradication, deer management,those other areas now. So I think,
you know, there would maybe bean appetite for people to get involved
with some projects soeffectively, say you've got a national

(01:14:56):
park in Donegal, they go, weneed a deer management plan. We've
only got half a dozen shootingrangers, we can cover that whole
thing. So they do recruitmentevery year in the deer season to
bring on hunters effectivelyto cover that. And so maybe there
has got to be solutions tosome of these things that work. I

(01:15:18):
think the key thing is if theycan integrate local hunters into
the solution, then they'llprobably get good buy in and also
those local hunters will knowthe local landowner. So it's all,
it's more of a communitydriven, it's more community driven
and I think providing somesupports maybe under the areas that

(01:15:38):
we talked about like thelarders, the, the chillers, the disposal
of, of carcasses that aren'tfit for the food chain, all those
type of things. If they couldbe incorporated in areas maybe initially
in Wicklow as a pilot, thatwould probably be the way, the way
they would, would get a lot oftraction. But we, we don't know yet.

(01:16:00):
We don't know because thetender has only been awarded the
project manager has just beenappointed. So I think. Yeah. And
probably one of your futurepodcasts will be with the project
manager. I think that wouldbe. That would be a good one. Once
they announce what the planis, I think there'll be a lot of
interest among landowners,among foresters and the general public

(01:16:22):
because we're all seeing moredigitized year. And I think everyone
wants to know what, you know,what this tender will bring. Will
it bring changes for hunters?Will it bring changes for leases?
Well, we're going to find out.That's probably going to be in episode
300. We're going to seeAshley. Ladies and gentlemen, Ashley
Glover, who is like, onceevery 100 episodes in my podcast.

(01:16:45):
Yeah. Yes. 300.
Appreciate it.