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Death of the Exmoor Emperor
The great stag was only the latest victim of misguided regulations that have devastated Exmoor's economy, says Rory Knight Bruce.
By Rory Knight Bruce
Published: 7:06AM BST 27 Oct 2010
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/8089207/Death-of-the-Exmoor-Emperor.html

Who killed the "Emperor of Exmoor"? In the best tradition of that occasional West Country resident Agatha Christie, no body has yet been found. But the strong suspicion is that the stag – thought to be one of Britain's largest wild animals, at 300lb and almost 9ft tall – was shot by trophy hunters for his antlers, which could be valued at anything up to £10,000.

For those of us who live, work, farm or hunt on Exmoor, this is a sad day. The stag has long been held as emblematic of the area: it forms the symbol of the National Park, various beers and even the Dulverton laundry. At this time of year, in the rutting season, the low "groick" of their mating call – a noise not unlike a prep school master bellowing from the touchline – rings out across the coombs and dingles of the moor, to the delight of thousands of nature enthusiasts.

This latest incident has already promoted the usual condemnation of stalking, hunting and rural life in general. Peter Donnelly, a self-proclaimed deer management expert from Exmoor, has condemned the shooting, if that is what it was, as a disgrace. "If we care about deer," he says, "we should stop all persecution during this time of year."

Yet, while no one is delighting in the death of the Emperor, neither should we decry it. Stalking during the autumn is perfectly legal, in Exmoor as in Scotland, in order to keep the red deer population healthy and in check. "The fact is," says Graham Downing, editor of the journal of the British Deer Society, "a person on whose land the red deer has come has a right to kill it, even as a trophy. Clearly it is very sad when a particularly magnificent animal is killed, but it will die some way or another at some time."

Downing also says that the sporting thing would have been to choose a lesser or older stag, or a young fighter. But at the age of 12, the Emperor was nearing the end of his fertile days. Deer of that age are prone to TB, broken legs, lungworm or losing teeth, which make it difficult for them to graze. Culling their numbers is not just a kindness, but a necessity, both to keep the red deer population in check and to keep it healthy.

As Tim Bonner, political director of the Countryside Alliance, explains: "This stag was probably at a stage where he would be mating with his daughters and grand-daughters, which would significantly reduce the virility and health of the herd." Even in the League Against Cruel Sports' own deer sanctuary at Barons Down, marksmen have had to be called to dispatch sickly and inbred deer due to the absence of organised culling.

So, says Bonner: "If this stag has been culled for the right reasons and in the right way, there is nothing wrong with it. In fact, the government and conservation bodies all work together to make sure enough deer are culled to ensure they don't damage fragile habitats and environments."

In 1972, a survey of the red deer population on Exmoor concluded that it stood at between 500 and 800. Today that figure would be nearer to 3,000, an indication of the successful deer management programmes that have been in place. But with the population stabilised, the lack of natural predators means that the number of red deer on Exmoor would expand by about 30 per cent a year if they were left to their own devices, causing a massive amount of damage to forests. Bonner points out that the RSPB – not exactly a bloodthirsty body – have killed thousands of deer in Scotland to allow the regeneration of natural woodland.

Stalking deer is not just necessary, but makes a valuable contribution to Exmoor's precarious economy. In Scotland, there have been many cases of licensed council stalkers shooting deer, at considerable cost. If sportsmen are willing to pay large sums for the privilege, why not let private enterprise come into play?

Here, however, we run into the real problem – a ham-fisted regulatory regime that has seen licensed, humane stalking replaced by freelance operations, of the kind that may have taken the Emperor's life. The hunting ban of 2005 – which devastated Exmoor's economy – restricted its three staghound packs to hunting with only two hounds. For centuries previously, they had taken out full packs of hounds, selecting outlying and older deer which were then dispatched.

As the heroine of Lorna Doone says: "To outsiders, we are quite an odd place, and the hunting of stags is a local affair." Those who followed the hounds, as I can personally testify, were largely farmers who wanted to manage the deer population fairly and humanely. Yet the riders who visited to experience the feeling of flying across the majestic moors behind a pack of hounds in full cry provided an immeasurable boost to the rural economy by hiring horses, staying in pubs and using local shops and post offices.

These mounted followers used to number perhaps 200 on any given day. Since 2005, however, that trade has all but evaporated. Hotels on Exmoor have been turned into residences for bankers, with hunting enthusiasts heading instead to France. The Exmoor economy, as fragile as a wildlife habitat, now largely relies on big-bag pheasant and partridge shoots, in which visiting guns may barely know which country they are in, let alone which county. Stags have, in several instances, fallen victim to poaching or unregulated stalking, and the Emperor may be a case in point.

"This is what happens when hunting with hounds, and particularly the staghounds, has been persecuted by bad law," says Guy Thomas-Everard, a significant Exmoor landowner and vice chairman of the Devon and Somerset Staghounds. "With hunting, we have always believed we help in not too many deer being killed. [Without proper regulation] you are likely to get what has happened to this stag on a far larger scale. People quite literally start taking pot-shots."

If we are looking for a way to improve the situation, one option would be to copy the Continent – and in particular France, where all deer hunting and shooting in state-owned forests is licensed, bringing millions of pounds to the Exchequer. Once, sitting alongside the local mayor in a coracle on a lake, I was invited to use a sword to dispatch a red deer every bit as large as the Emperor, when the hounds had set him at bay. Was there an outcry? On the contrary – there were 300 cheering spectators, many recording the scene with video cameras.

If the Emperor of Exmoor – so named by Richard Austin, the photographer who first captured his likeness – has been taken and sold as a trophy, then Exmoor is a lesser place for it. But this can also be firmly attributed to the way in which the post-ban regulation has undermined the area and its economy. The results have benefited only trophy hunters, one of whom I recently met in Stockholm.

Over his life, he told me, he had attempted the "Big Five" in Africa – elephant, buffalo, lion, leopard and rhino – but had balked at the last of these. When I asked why, he said it would have cost him £40,000 – as a sportsman, he said, he had rejected the more wildlife-friendly option of having one stunned for an hour and having a prosthetic mask cast, for a reduced sum of £10,000. I hope he has not just added the Emperor to his collection instead.

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