National Gamebag Census: trends in deer and boar


The red deer bag index tripled over the first


30 years, stabilised and then declined by 16%. © Peter Thompson/GWCT


BACKGROUND


The National Gamebag Census (NGC) was established by the GWCT in 1961 to provide a central repository of records from shooting estates in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The records comprise information from shooting and gamekeeping activities on the numbers of each quarry species shot annually (‘bag data’).


Figure 1


Index of red deer shot per km² on NGC sites across the UK, 1961-2015


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The National Gamebag Census (NGC) collects information on six species of deer and also wild boar. Of these, only the red and roe deer occur naturally in the UK, the others having escaped from captivity or been deliberately introduced. These ungulate species are shot for sport (stalking), and also to prevent damage to woodland and arable crops. We received 653 returns for the 2015/16 season, of which 347 contained data on ungulates. Participation in the NGC is voluntary, and as always we are very grateful to contributors for supporting the scheme, which provides an unrivalled insight into historical and current trends. To calculate trends, we need at least five returns per year, so the start year varies between species from 1961 to 1984. For each species (except water deer and boar, for which returns are too few), analysis is based on sites that have returned bag records for two or more years, and summarises the year-to-year change within sites as an index of change relative to the start year. In the graphs, this means that the first point is always set to a height of 1. A height of 2 indicates that numbers have doubled since the start year, one of 0.5 that they have halved.


Red deer (Figure 1) The red deer’s traditional stronghold is in Scotland, where it is most widespread on moorland, but is also found in woodland and farmland fringes. Outside Scotland it has concentrations in north-west and south-west England, Hampshire, East Anglia and Northern Ireland. Based on a total of 282 sites, the bag index tripled over the first 30 years, followed by stabilisation then a 16% decline. The increase reflects the rising


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0 1960 40 | GAME & WILDLIFE REVIEW 2016 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 www.gwct.org.uk


Bag index (1961=1)


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