The march of the muntjac and our responsibility to the countryside

It is time we re-learn that, in order to protect what belongs to us, we must take difficult, unpopular but necessary decisions.

There has been talk in recent times of re-introducing carnivorous land mammals to these blessed shores because… well no-one’s really sure. Bears once used to prowl the British isles but they disappeared around 1,500 years ago; wolves are a key candidate for any re-wilding scheme, though it would be best to remind any canine enthusiasts that wolves were hunted to extinction for a very good reason.

It is and must remain a privilege to walk through the thickets and fields in the full confidence that no animal can kill you (except maybe a red deer – just remember to keep clear of any herds you see). The Indian jungles are laced with tigers that can jump up to sixteen feet into the air; 200-million-year-old dinosaurs routinely invade the tropical golf courses of the southern United States; and the snowy, gorgeous Arctic landscape harbours a 500-pound bloodhound that actively hunts humans.

Despite the rumours of big cats roaming the land, there has not been any evidence of a panther snacking on any unfortunate Briton on a Sunday stroll. Though if there’s one justifiable reason to repopulate these isles with an agile, carnivorous beast, it would be for population control - and for the control of one species population only.

For those of who are unfamiliar with the brown, barking beast mentioned in the title, here is a little introduction to the muntjac deer. Brought to England from China in the twentieth century, the ground zero for their rapid expansion was Woburn Park in Bedfordshire. Without any natural predators, and without any confined breeding season to tame their numbers, they are currently stretching their fingers to every corner of Great Britain.

In my home county of Huntingdonshire, resting on the Cambridgeshire-Bedfordshire border, muntjacs are a common sighting, with encounters becoming more frequent by the year (this is anecdotal evidence but my experience is merely reminiscent of their growing dominance in southern England).

Muntjacs are also relatively small for a deer, about 1’ 8” tall, around 8” shorter than Roe Deer. This small size allows them to dig further into the undergrowth, with their diet consisting of shoots, herbs, berries, fungi, as well as the crops we grow to feed ourselves.

Their acquired taste, coupled with their unrestricting breeding time, lead to the muntjac being classified as an invasive alien species in 2019. The barking beast, as they are sometimes referred to, pose a danger to conservation areas due to devouring small trees, and their love of woodland understory (the row of vegetation along the ground) has threatened native woodland bird populations. They also enter private gardens and allotments to munch on any vegetation they can get their teeth into, my grandfather’s former allotment being one such victim of this roaming pest, along with this allotment holder in Newmarket, Suffolk, who has called for a muntjac cull due to the local population eating its way through hundreds of pounds worth of crops.

The problems that this species bring are so severe that in 2012, the Scottish National Heritage organisation (now called NatureScot – for some reason), issued a shoot-on-sight call to Scotland’s deer managers, warning of extensive damage to orchards and oak woodlands should the muntjac be allowed to cement its grip north of the border. This concern is now eleven-years-old, so the problem has likely become significantly worse.

While there has been rising enthusiasm for a good old fashioned deer cull (not just of muntjac, but of other species), there remains an astounding lack of logistical planning and political courage to follow through on what needs to be done. If any green thumbed environmentalist or tweed-wearing traditionalist wants to suck all the CO2 out of the atmosphere and re-forest Britain respectively, the muntjacs will need to be extensively slaughtered.

Nature is a beautiful thing, worthy of respect and more than deserving of our protection. When any eco-system is not in equilibrium, glaring problems arise that grow to noticeable behemoths overtime. It is worth repeating that deer have no natural predators in Britain anymore, thanks to our forefathers eliminating a common enemy: the wolves.

Therefore, it is ourselves that must assume the title as its predator, but with our high intelligence and long-term strategy formulation allowing the muntjacs, and all other deer species, to live as close to paradise as it gets for any mortal creature.

Nevertheless, as with a cull of any creature, whether dangerous, disease-ridden, or otherwise, it becomes clear to any proponents that the juice may not be worth the political squeeze. That the media, an urban class largely unaffected by the damager deer cause, can drum up a sympathy campaign for clicks, as they have previously done with the badger, a notorious transmitter of tuberculosis to cattle. Foxes are another, though fox hunting can be unnecessarily cruel.

The justification for a muntjac cull is unequivocal. Their cousins in Asia have to evade tigers, leopards, and crocodiles on a daily basis; in Britain they are free to roam, breed undisturbed, and have not faced any large scale retaliation for the roughly £10 million worth of damage they cause per year (the hyperlinked article is now twelve-years-old so that estimate has undoubtedly ballooned). The Forestry Commission of Scotland calculate that muntjacs have inflicted £4.5 million of damage upon crops and woodlands in 2021, and the bill is only going to climb higher and higher in the years to come.

A policy of non-interventionism rarely ever succeeds when you are the one being intervened. It is time we re-learn that, in order to protect what belongs to us, we must take difficult, unpopular but necessary decisions. We have a duty to shield our countryside and our local food production from disaster, especially if it is being attacked by an invasive species that has not, and will never learn, to exist in a state of balance with the surrounding environment.

It is worth repeating one final line: deer have no natural predators in this country, which has lead to some expected consequences which we must remedy, if we are to preserve our countryside from any further harm.