Deer Crossing

A client has an established mixed woodland, which is was originally deer fenced 20 years ago. The original fencing dimensions (pig wire size) where not sufficient to prevent the Roe Deer entering, and they had been observed on one occasion jumping through the small gaps. The Red Deer had been prevented from entering until this winter (2018), when as result of rotting posts, sign was found of one Red Deer (yearling) being inside the fenced area. This was a solitary animal and clearly wanted to get back to the herd from the tracks and sign.

The owner had wanted to remove the fence as the woodland was now established and the impact of any deer could be managed by stalking. This met the with the objectives of the Woodland Management Plan. The owner was keen to have both the Red and Roe on the property from a personal desire as well. The cost of removing the fence was prohibitive though and so this was not an option.

To overcome the immediate issue of the solitary animal, the deer gates where opened and the Red Deer moved in numbers with an acceptable impact on the habitat. Over the course of the next few months, it became clear that the Red Deer had found an alternative way into the woodland and where squeezing through the wire. To prevent this causing possible injuries, we decided to turn this into a deer crossing and to save on costs, recycled fencing materials and hazel wands were used.

The idea behind this is being that if the Red and Roe have a greater freedom of movement through the woodland and neighbouring areas, it will help reduce the impact and thus reduce stalking/culling requirement as the burden of the population will be spread over a greater area.

The video below shows a montage of trail camera clips taken from the first few days of having the crossing in place. An added bonus is that it will also allow us to keep an eye on the health and wellbeing of the deer using the crossing and focus any culls on deer of poor standard.

For information on fencing the Forestry Commission offer a good resource which can be found by following this hyperlink; https://www.forestresearch.gov.uk/research/forest-fencing/