Wild deer welfare: what is it?

Definition

Welfare is about ensuring the mental and physical well-being of deer As with all mammals, deer can experience pain, fear, hunger and other stressful states. At an individual level their welfare can be assessed from observations of physical their physical state (eg presence of painful diseases, emaciation, injuries) and their behaviour (eg social position within the herd an individual staggering, an individual holding head down).

Responsibilities

The welfare of wild deer must be considered in the context of the environment in which they live and in a way which takes into account the degrees of moral responsibility placed on those who manage them.

At one end of the scale of responsibility are farmed animals such as sheep and cows. These animals are owned and with that ownership comes a moral and legal responsibility to ensure that they live a healthy life. Animals living wild are at the other end of the scale. They are owned by nobody and therefore nobody has a direct legal or moral responsibility for them.

Deer fall somewhere in between the two. Many wild animals in Scotland are managed to some extent. Reasons for this include human sporting activities and/or for consumption - stocking rivers for angling, management of heather moorland for grouse, etc.

A useful guiding principle in the management of free-living deer is that:

• the greater the level of management (or the degree of intervention) and
• the greater the extent to which this is for human benefit,
• the greater the moral responsibility those involved have for the welfare of the deer.