The British Deer Society AGM covered the big issues facing wild deer in the UK, including chronic wasting disease, ticks, hybrids, government policy and the nation’s love for our largest wild animals.
Scottish Trustee Director and Area Chair John Bruce ran the two-day conference, which started at the Budongo Lecture Theatre at Edinburgh Zoo. Day two of the conference was held at the next-door Holiday Inn.
Subjects covered at the conference were:
- Genetics of deer – Hybridisation and introgression between red deer and Japanese sika by Prof JM Pemberton, Institute of Evolutionary Biology
- Biodiversity and ungulate management in managed forests by Claudia Jordan-Fragstein, Projektbüro BioWild
- Habitat Impact Assessment – Assessing herbivore impacts on woodlands: an observational approach by Dr Helen Armstrong
- Scotland’s Wild Deer: A National Approach – what is the role of BDS? by Jessica Findlay, SNH
- Wild Deer Best Practice – where it is and what is does by Alastair MacGugan, SNH
- Landscape development – Impacts of scale & diversity of land ownership in Scotland by Stephen Thomson, SRUC
- Landscape development – The role of red deer in shaping the upland Scottish landscape by Dr James Fenton
- Landscape development – National trends & regional differences in red deer density in Scotland by Donald Fraser, Operations Manager, SNH
- Research – Roe deer genomics – Insights into the demographic history of roe deer populations by Menno de Jong, PhD candidate, Whitehead Trust
- Research – A citizen science approach for studying impacts of outdoor recreation on red deer by Dr Jed Long, St Andrews University
- Research – Disturbance of red deer on Ulva by Hagen O’Neill, Durham University
- Ticks & Borreliosis – Ticks on South Downs by Jo Middleton, BSMS
- An overview of the ecology of Lyme disease in the UK by Prof Richard J Birtles, School of Environment & Life Sciences
- Rationale and implementation of a UK-wide tick-borne virus deer serosurveillance study by Maya Holding, NIHR, University of Liverpool
- Deer Health – Chronic Wasting Disease, explained in worldwide scenario by Dr Mark Dagleish
- Deer Health – Modelling the susceptibility of British deer to Chronic Wasting Disease by Dr Fiona Houston & Amy Robinson, Roslin Institute, Edinburgh
- Deer Health – E Coli0157:H7 – prevalence and risks by Dr Tom McNeilly, Moredun Institute
- Infra-red thermography: development of a field method to assess chronic stress in free-ranging deer by Prof Rory Putman
For more, go to BDS.org.uk
This film was first shown in Fieldsports Britain episode 443. To watch the whole show go to Fcha.nl/fieldsportsbritain443
