Elliot Fairs, an ecologist who runs a farmer cluster group in Devon called the Teign Valley Facilitation Fund, said: “There was a very clear challenge all the farmers were facing which was the rising numbers of deer in the Teign Valley.
“It was causing them all sorts of problems, be it damaging their fencing, eating their crops, destroying their woods, any laid hedges, any planted hedges were being affected.”
A herbivore impact assessment revealed nine of the 13 landowners surveyed reported high levels of deer browsing.
In the first year of the group’s management scheme 432 deer have been culled.
“I’m an ecologist, I’m not a deer stalker,” said Fairs. “I’m not really somebody who gets the whole stalking, hunting side of things.
“But to suddenly understand and see with my own eyes the links between the clear levels of deer and the impact they’re having on other species of wildlife and the damage they’re causing to habitats.
“It was pretty obvious to me that if I didn’t try and help figure out a way to resolve or at least reduce this problem, the other efforts I was putting in to save dormice and butterflies would be pretty much nullified.”