Deer

The Deer Group works to promote sustainable deer management, particularly as part of the sustainable upland land use agenda.

Group Objectives

  • Ensuring effective implementation of deer management policy and the Natural Environment Act provisions, so deer densities are reduced to levels that allow natural regeneration and ecosystem recovery.
  • Strengthening the use of Deer Management Nature Restoration Orders and related powers, ensuring they are applied where voluntary approaches are insufficient and deliver real ecological outcomes.
  • Supporting a shift towards strategic, landscape-scale deer management, improving coordination across landholdings to address overgrazing and enable woodland and habitat restoration at scale.

 

Convener

Duncan Orr-Ewing (RSPB Scotland)

Vice-Convener

David Fleetwood (John Muir Trust)

Staff liaison

Juliet Caldwell

The group includes LINK landowning organisations and is therefore both a deer management policy and operational forum, with links to both NatureScot and the private deer management sector.

Latest News

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The Natural Environment Bill part 4 – deer management

02 Jun 2025

This is the final blog in a series looking at the four sections of the Natural Environment Bill. You can look back at Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. One of the standout artworks at the National Galleries of Scotland is the immediately recognisable Monarch of the Glen, a 19th century painting of a […]

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Programme for Government: new deer management plans welcomed by environmental charities

06 May 2025

Responding to the Programme for Government, Scottish Environment LINK’s chief executive, Dr Deborah Long said: “We welcome today’s news within the Programme for Government that the Scottish government will consider the development of local deer management projects pilots, a plan based on a proposal from LINK Deer Group members. “Scotland’s oversized deer population is a […]

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Deer Group welcomes compulsory deer control scheme approval for Loch Choire Estate

10 Apr 2025

Scottish Environment LINK’s Deer Group welcomes the historic move by NatureScot to enforce a compulsory control scheme at Loch Choire Estate in Sutherland. Deer densities on the estate have been identified as being at an unsustainable level, risking damage to important habitats, including four Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). NatureScot has intervened on this […]

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