And so this is episode 200 of the Conservation and science podcast where we take a deep dive into topics of ecology, conservation and human wildlife interactions. And I'm Tommy Serafinsky and I always strive to bring you diverse perspectives on the stories that we cover. And this is obviously special episode, episode 200. People who listen to episode 100, they already know who is the guest. The guest is a master, first of all, the great friend of the podcast, a master huntsman, a conservationist. And I'm saying that because, not because you're a hunter, but because of the. All the work that you do. And as if this is not enough, a master axe thrower. Best in the world.

No, not best in the world.

On some days. On some days.

Sometimes I can hit the middle. Yeah, yeah.

So, ladies and gentlemen, Ashley Glover. Ashley, welcome to the show.

Thank you very much. And thank you to Simon and Quincy for hosting us today at Wicklow Wolf.

Absolutely. And this is. People who watch this not only listen, but to watch this. And just a reminder, you can watch this now not only on YouTube, where is your standard place to go for video podcasts, but also on Spotify. So if you're listening to this on Spotify, and I know that 60% of you are listening on Spotify, you can switch the video. And also on Spotify now you can leave the comment. So anyway, we are here in the Wicklaw brewery and just for the full disclosure, this episode is not sponsored by Wicklow Wolf, but it is facilitated. So it's only fair to mention them. If you are in Wicklow, definitely come here, taste their beer. It's a great beer, not like a slop that you can buy in the shops and excellent location. As you can see, the brewery is behind us. So just a way to say thank you for hosting us today. If you're in Wicklow or if you're driving through Wicklow. Well, not driving, traveling. Give him your business and comment. Leave the comment. How was it? And did you like the beer? So, yeah, with that out of the way, we have a lot of things to cover today.

We have a lot of things to cover. Yeah.

Those of who are for a long time with us might remember that in episode 100, Ashley was our guest and we went through the previous 100 episodes and back then we said like, okay, we gonna do it next time in episode 200. So here it is, episode 200. I must shine my own wheels a little bit. I'm quite proud of the fact that we are here with episode 200. Because that wasn't given that we're gonna do like it's, you know, folks, this is a labor of love for me. And by the way, if you want to support me, you can buy me a coffee. Buymeacoffee.com TommysAudor is the link in the description of the show. You know the drill. So that's how you can support what I do here. And here we are, episode 200 and we were talking about some of the episodes from the, you know, between 101 and 199. What do you have there?

Yeah, so I kind of picked out a few and we talked about a couple that we might go through today. So the first one up was with Megan Rowland who is involved in conservation and science management, deer manager for Nature Scotland. And I thought that is pretty relevant at the moment because the national deer kill manager has just been appointed. It's believed, it hasn't been announced yet, but it's believed it's going to be a Wicklow based manager. And I guess Megan dealt with, you know, some of the challenges of upland and lowland. I think lowland deer management is maybe, you know, even though we're in the Wicklow uplands, it is more, maybe, maybe, maybe it's more relevant there. And she was talking about, I think the setup of the deer management groups and particularly, as you know, I've recently been appointed as chair of the Irish Deer Commission. Accurate data and population data, which is essential for informed management of deer. And that would be a big thing that the Irish Deer Commission would push. You know, like we don't know how many deer they're in Ireland. We know vaguely where they are. We know that they're spreading to areas they weren't before. But we don't have, I think, a scientific approach in place yet to really monitor the population. I had a good buddy of mine, Ryan McIntyre over from Nova Scotia recently and was talking to Ryan about how they, how they approach things on crown land. So crown lands are basically a mix of parks and wildlife and Quiltsha. They're the state lands. And he, he looks at forestry management there and the impact of deer would come within that remit. And yeah, we're just, we're at the very early stages of putting in some sort of measurement system. You're probably aware of the Smart Deer program in ucd. My, while I think the fundamentals of that program was good, my problem with it was that it just wasn't granular enough. So for example, it broke Wicklow down into I think 90 different blocks. And I know even in a small wood, you know, the deer can be in one little bit of that wood and you can have 150 in one small folio in one corner of a gland. And the rest of the glen can be completely empty because, as you know yourself, Tommy, deer will go where there's no pressure. They're really smart. And sika are smarter than fallow or.

Reds, I believe, your average deer.

Yeah. And they're certainly smarter than me. So they will go where there's no pressure. So if you take an area where I was up there yesterday, it's in the top of one of the glens here in Wicklow, and we have about six or eight landowners that are trying to establish native woodlands. So they're quite keen on reducing the deer population to a sustainable number. Now, no one wants to eradicate deer, but I think, you know, you don't really need a scientist up there to tell you the deer population isn't compatible with the restoration of that oak wood. So it's always the same. You've got, you know, a number of conservation orientated landowners that are happy to facilitate hunting and in areas where the population is even higher, then sign off on sections. So just so everyone understands the difference between regular hunting under section 29, which is, you know, in the open season, section 42 is quite prominent in Wicklow compared to other parts of the country. So I believe there are something in the nature of 600 sections issued in Wicklow every year, and they allow a landowner in conjunction with the nominated hunters, to cull effectively all year round, and in some cases cull under license at nighttime using thermals or a lamp. So that is not as common in other parts of Ireland, but it is commonplace in wicklow. And those 600, they're 600 sections, but some of those sections have 20 hunters on them. Like all the sections that I'm on have maybe four, six, eight hunters on them, and relatively small because you have a rota system because the numbers are so big that you're trying to reduce. So you wouldn't be able to reduce those areas under a regular Section 29 license. I think that's probably, probably fair to say. You may succeed in moving the animals around, but you won't, you won't, you won't be able to knock back the 30% recruitment rate that that herd will.

Have if we step back for a second. And there are huge changes coming in to Ireland for deer management compared to what it was. So if you can give us you know, again, TL Dr. Version of what is the nature of those changes?

Okay. So I think, and I've done a couple of talks and presentations on this recently because a lot of people I think didn't really understand what the tender was about. And certainly if you go on social media, do you know, hunters, landowners, foresters maybe didn't understand what the tender, what the tender was for angry people. So the, the deer management strategy group made certain recommendations and then put out a tender. And the tender was issued by the Department of Agriculture, which is strange because deer usually come under Parks and Wildlife. So that was the first kind of strange thing. Why are Parks and Wildlife not the lead body for deer management in Ireland? You would think they would be. Well, we don't know. We don't know. The tender was for 3.4 million to hire a program manager and to resource 15 deer management units. Now, if you look at the numbers that are available and the only numbers available are really the co returns which are self declared. And while they show the trends, they're probably not totally accurate because there are shot illegally, deer are hit by cars. Some people don't do a proper return for different reasons. So the numbers are probably.

I heard about people, I don't know if they just put it like a more than they really shot to come across as a good hunter.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or they'll put less if they shot a lot. And I don't. And sometimes I think they, they put. If they're on Quilter leases, that's an issue as well. Maybe some people put less because they think, oh well, if I say there's a lot of deer there, maybe Quilter will charge me more for my lease. You know, people have ideas that maybe don't bear out. Okay. And we don't know why people put on what they return. And it's all self declared. As you know, there's no tags in.

Ireland and those units, are they going to cover the entire country or they're.

Like, so it's a national. They were very clear about that at the beginning. It's going to be a national. It's going to be a national tender.

So regardless where you hunt, you're going to be part. You're going to hunt on one of those units?

No, not necessarily. No. Because it's going to be 15 deer management units and we don't know what size each deer management unit is going to be.

The question I'm asking like is did they turn, took like entire Ireland and divided that between 15 units?

We don't know yet.

Oh, we don't know yet.

We don't know yet.

So there is a chance you will hunt on the land that is not part of any unit.

Yeah, but you then might be hunting within that deer management unit. We don't know that. We don't know how that's going to work and we don't know how. I was on the committee for state and semi state land. We still don't know how they're going to incorporate. As you know, certainly in Wicklow, all the deer are in either Quilter or in the national Park. They do come out onto private land, onto farms, you know, at night, but they don't live there.

I don't see, but I don't see the situation where they could leave the, some land out of being in a deer management unit because the next thing that would happen, all the deer would, would be in that area.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well look, look, look. Let's, let's do, let's, let's go through what we know, okay. First, okay, so we know there's a 3.4 million contract that hires the program manager and 15 part time deer manager units who are going to do with the data and the landowner engagement and the stuff like that. We don't know how they're going to operate on state or semi state lands and we don't know how they're going to engage with Quilter, Bordnemona, the army lands in Glen of Amal, all the local authorities. Like I've had a local authority onto me recently in saying, oh, could you help us devise a deer management unit for our land? Will they do that? You know, with the resources they've got? Maybe, but it's going to be, you know, to cover all of those bases will be, will be challenging, will be challenging for them. It's not mandatory. So on private lands where the landowner doesn't want a management plan, they can just say, no, thank you. So for example, they might have, there might be areas where they want to withhold the sporting rights. For example. They might go, no, I have a guy. Do you know there's a lot of big estates, for example, in Wicklow that have maybe one hunter and he shoots the deer on that and they don't want anyone else shooting there apart from that one hunter. And if a deer management unit was to set up in that area, they may go, no, we have a guy. We're going to deal with this ourselves. But if the stats show that the numbers there are effectively they're a sanctuary, what happens? Because it's all.

So I guess this is what Meghan was talking about. What was somewhere in Scotland where you have essentially a commercial operation that wants to have a lot of deer.

Exactly. Sporting rights available. I think that's episode 119 on land and Deer Management in Scotland with Megan Rowland. I recommend everyone listens to that. I think it's a very good episode. So it's the sporting rights. It's also you can have. And again, it's not that common, but we have it in Wicklow. Anti hunting landowners, some of those landowners that actually feed deer. So they're creating a deer sanctuary. So we have some of them in our area and it's really difficult if you've got a large anti hunting landowner. Is there.

So is there, Is there something. Is that a thing? Large anti hunting landowner?

Yeah, there's one like you can see out the window here. Yeah, I'll bring you. And you can see. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's a vegan and he doesn't agree with hunting and he's very conservation orientated otherwise. But he will not agree with hunting. There's another, maybe an interim step which is more common where somebody is not anti hunting, but they won't facilitate hunting at a scale that would allow you to reduce that population or even keep that population static. So they may, for example, allow some recreational hunting, but they won't sign off on a section, for example. And you know, and that's even if the conservation ranger goes and says, yeah, you need a section, they can still go, no, I don't want one.

Yeah, well, I agree with that because it's a private land. So to an extent.

Absolutely, absolutely.

But you know, like, I am surprised, like a lot of the large, you know, like when I was looking for land to hunt years and years ago. Yeah. I did come across people who said, like, oh no, we like deer, we like them here. Right. But they were like a small, kind of like a large landowner. You would imagine that they have some sort of like a sensitivity to those issues and understanding. It's not about me facilitating hunting for pleasure.

Yeah. And you would think. But like, I know who those landowners are. I would have spoken to them. I know the conservation rangers have spoken to them. Other hunters will have spoken to them. Adjacent landowners trying to restore a native woodland will have spoken to them and they still go, look, I'm still saying, no, I do not want anyone on my land with firearms. That's the bottom line. Because they don't agree with hunting or because they feed deer or because they have a guy. Now it may be that guy hasn't come since before COVID but in their mind they're kind of. They have a guy. Yeah, yeah, they have a guy. The have a guy thing is quite common and you know I have some hunting permissions that I've shot on for three, five years and I've never seen a jeep parked up. I've never heard a shot. So while they may have a guy, that guy might not even live in the country.

But so. So that I suppose that gives me. Makes me ask a question that might be important again for. For recreational hunters. So provided they have a. They are the guy. Yeah, right. And they have a permission to hunt on the land now when the landowner signs up for the scheme. Right. Because there's a lot of landowners who goes like yeah, shoot the bastards. They want as many hunters as possible.

They want reduce by scheme. You mean to sign up to be in a deer management? Yes, yeah, yes.

So. So then is the guy is that hunter loses his permission?

We don't know. We don't know what Quilcher have said and this only applies to existing quilts and we've asked for some clarific through the irishdair Commission. What Quiltshire have said is existing leases will be unaffected. But does that mean when those leases come up for renewal they might be affected? And what is the situation with all of the Quiltshire land bank that isn't under lease? Because that's huge in Wicklow. That's half of Quiltial land isn't on hunting leases. So there is no hunting. Sometimes they don't even own the sporting rights for those lands.

Really Quilter.

Sometimes they don't have any access to those lands. Like there are areas I know of Quilter blocks that there is no access. So it's basically stranded assets.

Why there's like a private land around.

Yeah, private land around it. So I think there's certainly through. As you know I'm on the board of Right to Know and we do a lot of AIE requests which like FYI but for environmental data and one of the areas we've been looking at is environmental mapping and on things like deer or fire or some of the other issues we've spoken about the impact of commonage for example, where you can get. And we'll get to this but there can be conflicting policy objectives, let's call it. I think that's a nice way of saying it. Where you can have maybe Parks and Wildlife restoring peatland on the Top of the hill and the semi state forestry company draining it halfway down the hill for replanting for sick as Bruce and you know that's the same hill. So I think often there is these policy conflicts and I think those policy conflicts exist in deer management as in everything else. So we don't know how DMUs will integrate existing hunters. We don't know what training qualifications. I would assume there'll be a basic minimum of qualification like hcap. But as you're probably aware there isn't a qualification for example for night shooting in Ireland. So what about if it's on section for lamping or section for image intensification equipment like thermals or night vision. So we don't know how that will be incorporated in. When an area has a deer management unit, how will the data be counted? Because one of the things I've seen on deer management programs before, we had a small deer management program in Wicklow before. So if you set up a deer management unit and you go to that area and you've got the landowners that are engaged and they say yes, we want emptied cull deer and you go okay, let's start on Monday, we've got hunters already, great, even better, right? And then they make their cull return into the dmu. That's not shooting any more deer, that's just shooting the deer those guys were going to shoot anyway or potentially worse. You go, no, that your area is not in a dmu. We need more hunters. So they take the hunters from X and put them into Y. There's no one shooting the deer there before. So you're just like, yes, they're shooting as many deer as they shot before, but they're shooting them somewhere else. And that's not like unless maybe there is. And where we are today is probably an example of that. Other reasons why you may want to allocate deer management resources into particular areas, for example to reduce road traffic related incidents with deer on the M11, then you could see, okay, that's probably a reason to reallocate, maybe hunters that are shooting somewhere else where deer aren't having such an impact and move them. And same with areas of, you know, where there's big impact on native woodland scheme or there's big impact on farmers. Yeah, yeah, so. So I, I'm guessing there will be and the tender allows, allows for that. So I think it's not going to be set in stone. And if I assume, and again we don't know yet, but I assume those DMUs will be flexible enough to move. So if they go to an area and they go, oh, well, you know, Mayo, for example. The IFA and Mayo are always saying, we need more deer managed in Mayo. But when you actually look at the data, there's very few sections even applied for in Mayo. So do they maybe not. If for political reasons they were allocated a deer management unit and that deer management unit just wasn't seeing a deer issue in Mayo, why put it there? There's no reason for it to be there. So that would probably be reallocated into somewhere like Wicklow. So if you take at a top level, it's probably going to be 15 deer management units, I think, based on the top level stats. One of our guys is a statistician, Jack, and he ran the numbers for me the other week because I knew we were doing this. He was saying probably out of the 15 you would have. And this is rounding up five in Wicklow, two in Tip, and then one in other counties after that. But that's based on sections and based on cull returns, known cull returns of the last few years, or it's based.

On the existing data. That's already questionable.

But remember, that data is somewhat questionable. Would we want to refocus mainly on Wicklow? Do you know? We don't know what size DMUs are going to be. So we don't know. Like, there's more than 15 deer hotspots in Wicklow.

But, you know, like, this thing is going on for like two years at least. Even longer when we count when we already started talking about it.

Good point. And probably that brings us on to the first thing. What was the first change that was made was to extend the male season. And that, that, that appeared to everyone that went. And I was on a lot of those meetings, it appeared to be somewhat of a known goal because if you think about, you know, your regular hunters that are going out, if they're now incentivized or it's open to them to shoot males earlier in the season. They shoot larger animals, their freezer's full, they're not going to be then shooting the females later.

So we covered that, like, I covered that in at least two blogs in a video. And the season is like, went from like four months to nine out of 12 for male. Yeah, so this is like. But this was like a, you know, like, I call it my words. It was like a lazy change just to see. Just to like, are we doing something?

Yeah, I think so. But I think it may turn out to have been a known goal because it didn't focus hunters on females. But I understand at the same time it's hard to focus hunters, some hunters on females because they want to have their grip and grin stag and you know, outfitters and you know, focus on stags. And there's reasons why maybe, but certainly I think, you know, out of the last hundred deer I shot, three were mature stags and they were for particular reasons of animal welfare or whatever. Because it's not making any difference. Okay. If they're inside a deer fence and you know, you're trying to restore a native woodland inside a deer fence, you shoot the deer inside the fence under section. It really doesn't matter whether the young, old, male or female. But in general you're only making a difference if you're shooting female deer.

So where I was going with this is what is. We talk about this for a long time already, like what. And it seems like we still don't know basic stuff. Where are those units? You know, how are we going to deal with hunters? How are we going to deal with it? So what are they? Maybe question is like are there any timelines for implementing this? Where can we. Or is it still like we talk about this and we Hear in episode 300 and talking about this again?

Yeah, and actually that's probably. I think by episode 300 what we'll probably be talking about still is measurement and monitoring because I think that for me is probably the most important thing. That's the bit that other countries seem to get. Right. I know it is difficult, but I think we just need to have some. Whether it's transects or thermal drones or you know, we have the technology now to measure and monitor deer.

That's what Killian is working on as well, right?

Yeah, Yeah, I know Dr. Adam Smith is working on that.

It might be working Adam as well.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I think thermals are a game changer in terms of counting. I am one of the pro Silva guys did thermal drone survey where I live recently and it was phenomenal. The level of detail. Now one thing to just mention on thermal drones and again, I'm not an expert in thermal imaging, but I think if you do the thermal drone survey in the daytime when the animals are bedded inside large cicus Bruce plant as where they're abed, you know, in state forestry in, in. In Wicklow, then you're probably undercounting because the thermals are not. They're good, but they're not that good. So in A continuous cover forestry or a, a thinned plantation or in gorse or bracken. You can see the animals and you can count them like and you can sex them and you can tell what age they are. But I don't believe having seen the images that they were seeing the full picture on the. And I've only seen what the. I've only seen the actual data on one survey. So out of that I felt it was underrepresentative. And the reason why I think it was underrepresentative is because one of the paddocks next to that we shot 92 deer last year under section so and the overall picture of the much bigger area was 400. So I was like, it's unlikely. We shot a quarter of them in just that one little corner. I think we weren't seeing the full, the full, full picture because the. I think if you were to see the full picture you'd have to do, you'd have to do a nighttime flight when you're seeing the animals out in the surrounding landscape when they're grazing. My understanding in most of the places where I am is they're increasingly nocturnal. Yes. So.

And especially with the changes that you mentioned now when the, when the deer season was extended.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's a, well, I don't want to say a known fact but there is some peer reviewed science on this that deer pressured they changing towards nocturnal.

I believe that is absolutely, absolutely the case. So then I think the, the big decisions maybe that are going to come up around land management and deere is, you know, whether the data and the impact assessments and hopefully that will be the area that the DM use will focus in. So the, if you think of this as being kind of a pilot project for data management, that's probably a good way of thinking about it. But I think at the same time in some of those areas like in Wicklow, there will have to be some culling as part of that because there are areas where the population at the moment is, you know, incompatible with road safety or incompatible with farming or forestry or whatever. So that's probably worth looking at. And then the other area which we don't know about and we don't know about how it's going to work in Ireland is about venison and the venison subcommittee recommendations. So at the moment, as you're probably aware, licensed hunters can only sell three carcasses into the food chain direct to restaurant or whatever. And I think it's in the nature, three per season. Yeah. It's in the nature of two or three thousand in the uk, like, so there aren't the same restrictions. So that probably needs to be changed. There's rules around the chillers and larders, that they're licensed by a local authority so they can't move around.

Do you think that that would have an impact on the number?

I think at the moment, one of the reasons I'm maybe in a different position, because I've got access to a big commercial chiller to hang the animals, but when I didn't have that, that was a restriction because if I had an animal already hanging, I could only hang one at a time, whereas now I could hang ten at a time. So I think there will need to be a. Some facilities made available in deer management units.

So maybe that's, That's a good moment to say, like, you know, the. Shortly, you know, the stats. What are, what is the. How many deer an average hunter shoots in a season and how much? 10. So average hunter.

Yeah, but that's, that's probably misleading. That's the average because you've got hunters that are shooting 400 and hunters that are shooting nothing.

So 10 is like 10 sounds like high to me. I'm surprised.

Yeah. But I would know a lot of guys that would be shooting 100 plus.

Yeah.

So.

Well, so. So that's fair enough. So. So how much should they be shooting to get on top of the deer problem?

Well, I guess that depends on their permissions and where they are. And you know, often as because of sporting rights and land ownership and all those various areas, often they can't shoot the deer where the deer are. So they could be shooting as many deer that come onto that farm. You know, I know farmers local to me, they've got a hunter on speed dial. Every time they see a deer on the farm, the hunter is there, they shoot that deer. But they can shoot across the hedge for all the reasons we've, you know, outlined. So I think there's going to have to be some, and this was talked about in the committee recommendations, some bore beer resources put into promoting venison. We did Wicklow naturally, a really good event where we had some chefs showing some of the dishes and so on. So I think venison promotion is going to have to be a part of it.

So you think that that would definitely change the situation in terms of people appreciate.

Yeah, yeah. So like, do you know some of the lobbyists, you know, that are kind of anti deer and as you're probably aware, there's been quite an anti deer narrative in some farming press and where, you know, deer by some farmers are seen as just pests as vermin and that.

Or that they spreading tb.

Yeah. That anti deer narrative that is. Is there. It's, it's probably not, not helpful in terms of, you know, trying to promote venison for the table. So I think that will have to be, that will have to be resolved. I think the, the, the systems and processes need to be a little bit tightened up. Like the applying for a section 42 is very convoluted and you're supplying parks and wildlife with data that they got 12 weeks before. And you know, it really isn't, it's not an online process. You know, it's very, very, very. It depends who you get.

And like, you know yourself. I was talking to you when I was trying to apply for a section which was like, hey Ashley, so this is what's happening. I said what do we. I was like, okay, it's, it's not the, it's not the simplest.

Yeah. So I think it's probably worth. I know you did a very good P on, you know, how to get into deer hunting. I think there's probably, you know, because there's nothing online. There's just like one page, the form for the landowner and the landowner often doesn't understand and the, there isn't really a, you know, a support person. There are, but they don't know who they are like the conservation ranger that they can speak to.

Right, we're recording. We're back after a short technical break. And what else do we have in store here? Mentoring.

So we were going to talk about the aging hunter population and mentoring and how we introduce, you know, new hunters.

To the big topic for hunting and big topic from perspective of deer management across the world. Aging hunters population, kids are playing PlayStation, not fishing, not hunting and fishing. And we are not young men anymore, but we probably one of the youngest. When you look at the room full of hunters. So what to do about it, how bad the situation is and what are the ways to fix it?

Yeah, often when I go to maybe a hunter related meeting or I'm in my local registered firearms dealer or whatever, I'm the youngest person there. And you know, I'm in my mid-50s. So I think there is an aging hunter population. Certainly it appears to be an aging hunter population in, in Wicklow. And one of the things I've been very conscious of, there isn't a formal program for this yet. I think there probably should Be is mentoring. So at the moment when you do your HCAP or you get your deer rifle for the first time, you go through, get your license, you're qualified and you're just kind of on your own. And if you don't have friends and family that shoot, where do you go from there? Usually the landowners are okay, yeah, work away, but it can be quite intimidating. It's not like shooting a rabbit or a pigeon. And I think there probably needs to be some certainly for year one, some sort of mentoring program.

Is it not already too late? I mean because if someone goes to hunt through hcup, they already on, they already own the program in their mind for being a hunter. But isn't the problem is like to get anyone to even put them in a frame of mind of actually oh, I can do this?

Yeah, well, I'd have, on any one stage I'd have, probably have four or five people that come out on a regular basis with me that are either working up to doing their HCAP or that have recently got their H cap and they're in year one of hunting and they just come along mainly to learn the field craft or they're interested in the type of conservation related woodland hunting that I do, which is maybe a little bit not unique, but maybe it's more unusual than say being on a Quilch Elise and sitting in a tree stand or shooting on a big dairy farm where you've got backstop everywhere. You know, I'm shooting along the N11 or inside deer fences or in areas that are often quite, you know, public access places. And so the human interaction side of it can be important. And you know, hunters can be intimidated by carrying their firearm along the Wicklow Way or into, you know, the birdwatch island site or wherever that could be.

You know, that's, that's true. And that's an important aspect because that field craft that you mentioned, that's not all need to look at the deer tracks and being able to assess whether they're fresh or not. But there's also like a safety element, like a public safety element and like I said, like an interaction of like, you know, lady with a little dog spotting. You grow looking a deer and what then.

Yeah, so often you do. Like I often meet people. Most times when I'm out, I would meet people at my farm because of the nature of the places that I shoot. And there are other recreational users, maybe not, you know, they could be horse riding or they could be hill running or mountain biking or dog walking or whatever. And yeah, usually you just get chatting and you know, I remove any face covering. You know, my, my farm would already be safe. I always keep the bolt separate when I'm going in and out. And yeah, you just have that chat with them and often, you know, particularly one, if you approach it from a conservation side of things, it's usually a good conversation.

Yeah, I remember like one in one of the farms that I, that I was hun. I was parking car along the road and I had to walk through along the road with a rifle and it was just like this feeling psychologist. I wonder if I have someone asking me.

Yeah, it can be challenging but yesterday I dropped up a haunch of venison to Bridget, an older lady that lives up the road from me because I just met her coming out of a field with my farm and she was like, oh, what are you doing in there? I thought the conversation could have went one way but actually she was like, oh, do you think you could get me some venison? And I was like absolutely. I'll drop it up tomorrow.

Practical old lady.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think we're going to be trading eggs for venison. I think that's the plan. That's the plan there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's got a lot of chickens.

So, so coming back to the, to the mentoring, right? Because like we were, we were talking that you identify this, this, this problem that people are. Let's say they figure out how you want to do, do Venice. We already do hcap. Yeah, they downloaded my how to get started in deer hunting guide. Hint, hint folks link in the description as well and they done a hcup and then they could do with some mentoring.

Yeah. And, and you know through my links with Pro Silva and some of the private forestry I may take somebody out like to just shadow me for a while. We're lucky. And that we've got a kind of syndicate insurance and we can add people to our insurance and I take them and talk them through it. You know, if it's in a native woodland scheme, maybe start off, show them like some of the deer damage, talk about how you might approach that area, talk about the different ways of stalking up to animals.

I would love to be a bit.

Of the field craft. Well you're going to do that this afternoon. We're going to maybe go and look at a couple of woods.

Yeah, well, yeah, without a doubt I'm going to learn something but it's already too late for me. But I will.

It's not too late. You learn something Every day here in the woods.

Yeah, I know. No, but I was just thinking like just shadowing, especially shadowing aspect of it because you know, like how I was starting, I was just like actually on the hunt as a hunter with the experience and I thought it was like too early. And then, you know, you're a shitty hunter and you're on a shitty hunt and you're not going to learn a lot while if you only shadowing, you can actually see the proficient hunter at work and you see the whole process how it should look like rather than you're going to learn on your own mistakes anyway, if you are the main hunter on this first one, certainly in.

This area because it's often very built up. So the deer come through the national park, they come down through the quilter blocks and they arrive on farmland, they arrive on the motorway. They arrive. We're starting to see deer very close to British Bay now for the first time. So they're arriving in places that they wouldn't have been traditionally and often. And people feed deer, for example, or they create deer sanctuaries or for the reasons we've mentioned, deer sanctuaries exist in Wicklow.

They're unofficial.

Yeah. So that kind of brings us around, I think, to the humane dispatch program. So through the Irish deer Commission, we've got 130 odd people trained up. There's actually another course this month to basically take licensed deer hunters through the process of humane dispatch for injured animals. Because that's.

So the scenario we're talking about here is that there is a vehicle collision.

Yeah, a vehicle collision. And that can often be traumatic. The most recent one I had was just outside Ashford village at the film studios. The animal went under a vehicle lost a leg, but it still managed to run off into the back of Cadegat. There's still all the film sets and all up there. A very difficult place. There's housing. Tracking an animal even with a dog and a thermal scope at night is very challenging.

Yeah. And this is for people who might not realize if the deer gets hit by a car, it's not like it's just laying around there. It's like, oh, my leg. It moves.

And there's often. There's still unresolved gray areas. What happens, for example, with humane dispatch on third party lands? Like, do you know, often the garda vehicle is called away. They can't spend the whole evening there tracking an animal. So you're kind of left on your own. It could be up on the Sugarloaf. It could be, you know, an animal under a bus, just to take a step back.

So the whole program, the idea of the program run by Irish Deer Commission is there is a vehicle deer vehicle commission collision or there is some other issue with the injured deer. And then those hunters who completed the course, there's a list, as I understand the list of their, those people certified for humane dispatch that is sent to.

Guardia Chicono Slantra certified, that's with the Garda. So what you do is the public, you call the Garda station. The Garda station have the list.

Yes. And then Guarda call the hunters as like hey, we have a problem with a deer. And then they know what to do so they show up.

And the key consideration is public safety. You know, because you're often on a busy motorway or you're in an area of housing or you know, we've had humane dispatch call outs in school yards. So it can be, you know, it can take a little bit of consideration and you know, as chatting to Terry who does the, the OPW humane dispatch for the Phoenix Park Herd, you know, sometimes it's simple things like for example opening the two door vehicles to give a bit of like privacy shelter. Yes, yeah, yeah. Unfortunately an increase because of this area and, and again it's very much most humane dispatch callouts are in Wicklow and in this area increasingly now in West Wicklow as well. But mainly, mainly along the N11 and up into Dublin. Now you know, we're starting to see deer up in Carrick Mines, Dundrum.

But I mean like even like anywhere where there are deer, they, this, this thing can happen and then it's like what do you do? Because like most, most of the time guards are not prepared to like, they don't know what to do.

They've been talking to the railway service as well because they have a similar issue with you know, deer on the tracks. And again, you know, if it's say a, a busy commuter rail like say in Kilcool here and you know, if there's a, an injured animal at the side, do they run the train in the morning past an injured animal? How did they get the humane dispatcher to that location? Because it may not have road access. So there's a little bit of planning, you know, I'd like a more engaged transport infrastructure island policy on deer management, particularly on the larger motorways where the speeds are at higher. Crash. You know, as one of the guys there said, oh, do you know Ash, we're not so keen on putting up high seats in those areas to facilitate the safer culling. But we will put up signs. And I was like, deer can't read signs. So I think there's so many go slow for deer signs in Wicklow in this area that they're just part of the landscape now. Everyone ignores them. They don't slow down if they see one of those signs. So locals know now, locals do know where deer are crossing and you can see we're going to go and see some of them later of the hotspots for humane dispatch. And there's huge holes where there's herds crossing some of the areas all the time now. And they tend to be in areas that are state or semi, state owned where there is no culling allowed. So if you don't have culling in, for example, a big Quilter block or a Parks and wildlife reserve, the herd grows by 30% a year. It's bang on the motorway. You're gonna have a problem. So I'd like to get out ahead of some of those problems and, you know, cajole or, you know, hope that as part of deer management those agencies would have a plan. But currently it's more reactive. It's like the guards call you at 3:00 in the morning. There's been a deer here in Glen De Downs. There's been a deer hit at Coins Cross. They would be my most common. Usually it's one or the other. There are other, a few other areas up in the hill around Glen Ely, around Carrick Mines and up around kind of toward Johnny Fox's kind of area where you'd have a lot of call outs. So the locals know. But unfortunately not everyone driving those roads is locals and they don't know to slow down on some of those bends or some of those off routes.

Oh, but you know, like I, I think that. And I'm gonna put my heads up as well, that up up until the, the moment where I started, you know, really looking closer at deer and whatever. These were the signs. Like, oh yeah, there's a sign that you're like, what are you supposed to do? Yeah, and, and, and just recently we were driving from, from Cork down to Kerry through this new newly open road past Makroom. And I remember on one of the episodes when I was talking with, with Damian Henningen from, from IHD Commission and he mentioned that once that, that that road was open, there was like absolute carnage. There was like a, like a number of collisions in one day because those deer just didn't know. Like all of a sudden the road appeared and so we were driving not long ago and I was saying to my fiance, like, look at those signs. You know, like, you just really pay attention and slow down because the deer can be here. And, and I don't think that a lot of people know that there, that there's, like, what to do if they see that sign.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think there is a thought maybe in some of the agencies that fencing is a solution to, you know, deer management. You just fence them out of the areas you don't want them to be. But the reality is, like, I spend most of my time shooting deer inside fences. So deer get under fences, over fences. Fences are not maintained, like, with the best will in the world. Generally, the fence may be maintained by a forester in a woodland scheme for maybe four years. After that, it's just left and they become deer sanctuaries because there's no humans inside and there's no dogs inside. There's just deer. So I think there needs to be maybe a program for deer management specifically inside fences. And, you know, putting fences alongside motorways just doesn't seem to work. I think there needs to be, because.

They'Re always going to breach the fence.

They're going to get under it, they're going to get over it and they're going to get around it. And, you know, if they want to be on the other side because the grass is greener or the hinds are on the other side, they will go on the other side. And it's, you know, it's not the deer's fault. There's, you know, the, the environment here is just perfect for Sika. And they've just got so much cover in those big blocks of Quilter with no pressure. They love it. So, yeah, one thing that has made humane dispatch a lot easier is thermals. So, for example, I'll get a call that, you know, Wicklow Garda Station will ring and say, oh, listen, Ash, there's been a deer hit at Coins Cross Apple Green. That's the main area where they get hit. And they will say, oh, can you go now? That's a huge area. There's like maybe four roads joining into that one roundabout. It's all covered in gorse and, you know, you can't see a deer with a lamp. And you're like, okay, where is it? You know, an injured deer, you know, even if it's mortally injured, can still run 150 meters. If it's, you know, just got a leg ripped off, it can go.

Yeah, exactly.

Indefinitely.

Like we Were talking earlier and this is also what I heard. Like deer can have like a legs broken, pelvis broken and it still moves around. Like this is not, this is not like human who would just lie around and be sorry for himself.

The handheld thermals have been a game changer in terms of, of identifying where the animals are. You can really what's the situations with.

The thermals right now? Because they were. There were like a lot of discussions about it. A thermal, is it part of a rifle, is it or a firearm or no.

So I think it's worth, it's worth listening back to Liam's podcast. You did with Liam Nolan of the Deer Lines. I think that covered this ground well. There hasn't been much in the way of changes that I'm aware of. IrishDeer Commission have a position on the firearms user group. So we would probably be aware if there were dramatic changes.

How is that going?

Again, there hasn't really been much. There hasn't been much change since. I think Liam's update is probably as good as you're going to get. I haven't heard of any significant changes. Some local changes. One that I mentioned is that for night shooting now on deer licenses in Wicklow, the Wicklow superintendent is asking hunters to notify Wicklow Garda Station before they intend to shoot at night. But in my mind that's. Well, it doesn't really apply to me because mainly I'm doing my humane dispatch callouts with a shotgun, not with my deer rifle, which is what that term is on. You would try because of the public safety issue to use a shotgun, not a rifle.

But sometimes explain to us why shotgun is better for public safety.

Because the range is small and you don't have the same. Yeah, it's just a range like. So if the animal is on the ground, it's easier to use the shotgun. If it's really incapacitated, then a humane bolt would be good. But most hunters don't have them. So we do have some members that do because of their day job, if they're in veterinary or, or butchery or whatever. But I just find the shotgun is the choice for humane dispatch. But generally when you attend you will have your rifle and your shotgun because you don't know the animal will often, you know, I've done three hour tracking up in Quilter woods where the animal was nowhere near where, you know, it was maybe a kilometer away from where it was hit. And you know, so having a tracking dog as well is useful. But the thermals are A game changer for identifying where an animal is. They're good now to nearly a mile. So I use thermal a lot for doing landowner assessments. So a landowner would come and say, oh, Ash, we're thinking of planting a native woodland scheme. Do you think we need a fence? And generally my advice is in Wicklow. Are you in Wicklow? Yeah, well, if you're in Wicklow, you know, and how close are you to park? How close are you to a large Quilter block? That would be, you know, and then you can generally look on Google Maps and you can do an assessment, but it's always good to ground test it. And, you know. So we have, through Rewild wicklow, we've got 50 camera traps through Adam Smith's program. Yeah. So I need to talk, I need.

To talk, talk to him, Talk to.

Adam again because he's like, he's, he's.

Doing like unreal program that they were doing this camera trapping in Ukraine and Belarus, I think before all the things went south there. And he was like, he's buying stuff from his own pocket. Buying cameras and putting into this program to run is like an incredible dedication.

Talk to him about the snapshot program because that's a program that I'm involved with here in Wicklow. We've got about 50 camera traps and I think it'd be good to see year on year the data from that. And it will also probably inform some of the, the decisions around the DMUs. So I think that's a good program. It gives a much more granular picture, whereas the thermal drone gives maybe a, you know, a slightly more landscape level. But then by the time you get to like dividing Wicklow into, you know, 90 squares, it, it kind of is like, oh, well, yeah, the deer are up there and then they come down there. It's, it's, it's not, it doesn't make for really any actionable data.

Should that data consist of the, like you said, movement of the animal either, either through the day or through the season?

Yeah, I, I like. You see a completely different picture through thermals. So, you know, I know landowners where do you know, they were like, oh, Ash, we've got a few deer. And they, I said, how many deer have you got? What's the most you would ever see? And they would say, oh, maybe 30. But then, you know, with the thermals I go, no, it's more like 130 or 230. So yeah, for, for, for doing counts at night with Thermals is the way to go. And it's fairly consistent. You know, certainly the hinds tend to stay in the same areas. So you can get a good. You can get a good picture by sometimes going once.

So when you said that the thermals are game changers, so the game changer is really the improvement of the thermal. Any changes in the legislation that happened because those changes didn't happen, we established that.

So. So to just be clear that you're talking about image intensifying devices that go on the rifle, that's a license farm. You have to get a separate license for that. But the gray area at the moment, the area that's unlicensed, effectively, is the pulsar that you hold in your hand. But I find them very useful in terms of doing my humane dispatch callout. If I'm working on a section 42, for example, culling inside fences on a native woodland scheme, or with the initial approach, when you're talking to a landowner and they're going, do we need a fence or do we have a deer problem? And I'm like, well, what is a deer? You know, and most landowners are. Don't want to eradicate deer. They just want to have a population of deer that is in keeping with the restoration of that land.

I noticed that most of the deer, not deer landowners, they usually know whether they have deer or not.

Yeah, they usually do, but they wouldn't know.

How bad is it sometimes?

No, not how bad it is, but how many, like, how many deer are crossing their property, for example, do you know? I've certainly been with landowners that had no idea. They were just completely oblivious, as recent as yesterday. So. And when you go and you walk the boundary with them with the thermals, and these can be places that have active deer management that maybe have a hunter that comes once a week or, you know, every two weeks or whatever, they can still have significant amount of deer that they would not be aware of because they're not seeing the difference between day and night. And with Sika, if they go nocturnal. So, yeah, I think humane dispatch is a good one to highlight. And then we were just chatting to Quincy on the way in from Wicklow Wolf. One of the other programs that I'd be quite keen on getting implemented, maybe through the new biodiversity action plan that Wicklow County Council are putting in, is mink trapping. Wicklow has significant mink. Invasive American mink.

Where do they tell us? Where did they come from?

There were a number of fur farms in the past in Wicklow and escapes from there. Yeah.

Where do you escape? So were they just releases? Because we all heard about the animal rights people releasing minks.

Yeah. Think that's one narrative, but I would say a lot are just, yeah, they just escapes. So. Yeah, anyway, however they arrived, they're here. You know, I know one of my neighbors reported five on a sea trap pool behind my house.

Tell us what's the problem? Like why mink is bad.

They really just, you know, will decimate the, the riparian corridor. They will take pretty much everything from, from the nesting birds to the frogs to everything. So, yeah, they are a perfect killer.

They are American minks, meaning they are.

Invasive purely for the fur trade. And now there's no. The last mink farm in Ireland closed, I believe last year, so there are no more coming in. But there are so many in the environment. So there's one really good program I know that Quincy's involved with and that's the Liffey Weir program. And that's from Island Bridge down to Grand Canal Dock where there is a mink trapping program at the weirs. And that's been well established. I think it's been going 15 plus years. And. And there's a couple of other mink trapping programs done with EIP programs. I know the Waders program has one, but I think we could, we could have one in Wicklow maybe on. Initially along the Murrah, up the Var Tree, the Dargle, some of our more sensitive sea trout spawning areas. And obviously it will help a lot with the ground nesting birds.

Do you know what are numbers? Like how, how quickly they're. They're spreading, how quickly they're reproducing?

No, I did some test trapping a few years back, but that was on request of landowners. So, you know, that's art. Like if the landowner is seeing mink and you put in a mink drop, you're going to probably catch mink. Mink. So I think we probably need to be a little bit more, you know, just work our way through. Obviously do it on request. Where a landowner is seeing mink. The Quincy reported mink up at the reservoir in Roundwood last week. So we know they're here, they follow those corridors. And I think if we want to be, certainly, you know, I'm very passionate about sea trout conservation, so I'd like to focus on the Sea Trout Cafe. But I would also think, you know, the Bird Watch Reserve in Kilcool, other areas like that could benefit from a mink trapping program. The new mink traps are connected. They have a SIM card and they actually tell you when they are flipped. So that for animals. Yeah. So any bycatch, say for example you trapped a pine marten or somebody's kitten or whatever, you can then go and release it, but you don't need to check.

I know people who would argue to not release the kitten either.

Yeah, yeah. So that's another. And you know, I do see, obviously when I'm out at night on sections, I see a lot of feral cats. Really?

How many?

Yeah, a lot in some areas. And I think it, you know, particularly in areas like native woodland where I think they are having a, a very negative impact on woodcock in particular. Like woodcock are very vulnerable and they must be vulnerable to feral cats.

I was, you know, like I was surprised like on one of the estates that I noticed, you know, there was like, I was, I was there for like a, you know, repeated number of times and the number of the cats, like they wouldn't probably qualify as quote unquote feral. Yeah, but these are, these are like a house cats who are getting out of the house. Yeah, it's like how many of those are just walking around? There's just people who live there. It's like, oh, this is not good. Yeah, there's a lot because, because this is always like, oh, this is like one cut. Like. Yeah, but the neighbor has a cat and there's a cat and there is a cat and all of a sudden you have 15 cats.

Yeah, yeah. So, you know, it's probably worth having another chat with pork brain about the conservation work they've been doing with ducks, for example, on the duck tubes and certainly, you know, fox and predator control with gray crows and so on is something that, do you know, it's difficult enough like when you're out say, you know, I'll give you an example of a farmer up the road here and we are managing quite a significant deer issue there where there's a lot of deer coming down, down through the sick of spruce blocks into the small native woodland adjacent to his farm. If we were then to shoot the foxes at the same time, we wouldn't shoot any deer because once you take that first shot, there's no deer coming out.

You know, I was talking with a, this is a guy from the UK who is protecting curio nesting sites and he's very, very much into predator control and he's a conservation minded person. And people who, you know yourself and people who are legalist know that I wrote a blog and had episodes of the podcast about predator Control and how important that is from the conservation perspective. And then that there is, you know, misunderstanding from the public who just thinks like, oh, you're just, you know, just kidding, you want to kill stuff and like, whatever. But so I have a conversation with him and he said something like, you know, sometimes I desperate, sometimes I wondering if we're not wasting time because everybody is completely on the same page that this is, you know, break glass temporary solution now so the curlew and the lapwing and so on will survive next three years. And everybody says like, yeah, this is not the be all end all. We need this, we need, you know, habitat. La da da da da. But nothing is happening. So it seems to me like there's no exit strategy.

I hear you. As you know, I'm on the board of Right to Know and we submit a lot of FOIs and AIE requests and a huge area that we've been submitting recently has been on hen Harrier and yeah, you wouldn't be optimistic. So I think, yeah, there needs to be a sea change there and the investment and all of the various stakeholders have to be on board because the scale of what would be needed to.

Yeah, exactly.

And Harrier habitat is just such a, such a, a significant project and a lot of that land is state land. So just do it already.

But that's a part. Yeah, but that's a part of it. Right. It's also like, oh, we have these overabundant meso predators or you know, whatever you want to call it, generalist predators, crows, foxes, also badgers funnily which are protected but they also have an impact on garden sting birds. And it's like, oh, because intensifying farming, intense farming practices are supporting them. And so like, but what you gonna do? Right? Like we, I don't see us de. Intensifying farming anytime soon. Yeah, so it's, it's, it's a tough one.

It is a tough one. Yeah, one. I was chatting to the ecologist for Air Grid recently about, you know, whether there's potential to do some restoration under the power lines because I think a lot of the wildlife corridors, you're probably aware of this research in the states that wolves hunt. We have to talk about wolves because we're Wicklow wolf. The wolves hunt more successfully under power lines, they found. And I hunt more successfully under power lines because both sides of that power line is probably a sick of spruce plantation where you can't hunt in. So I think air grid and ESB in terms of what they're looking at they're looking at case studies from Belgium, I believe, at the moment of how to manage biodiversity in those wildlife corridors, because they're very important wildlife corridors. So I think there are a lot of people coming at this from different angles. Maybe they're just, you know, with podcasts like yourselves, it's, you know, good to get them a voice so that they even know who's doing what. And that's one of the things. I've just joined the steering committee of Natural Capital Ireland and two of the projects we're going to be looking at there. One is going to be a kind of who's who in terms of conservation in Ireland because that doesn't exist, so you often don't know the contact for different projects. And the second is to start building a database of shovel ready projects. Whereas that might be, say a barrier removal project for sea trout or it could be something like a peatland conservation program in the uplands.

Tell us about the Natural Capital Ireland, because that's a yes.

I've just joined, I was invited to sit on their steering committee. So it's all new to me, but I think those two initial projects will probably, I have a background in data, so I think that's where I'll probably get involved. I think the idea of improving mapping and monitoring is probably where they probably add the most value. So I think where Ireland has probably been good in the past is mapping the good stuff. If you go on social media you're like, oh, Bordne Mona have restored this bog in the Midlands. And that's great. But what they're not saying is, oh yeah, but we have one up the road that we're pumping dry because we might put a wind turbine base there. And wind turbines don't like to get their feet wet. So you may find, I think that, you know, mapping of the stuff that's maybe not so good is probably as important or maybe more important.

It's probably more important.

Probably probably more important. I think that's something we're seeing in marine habitat. It can be, oh yeah, we're doing this cleanup here, but over here, here and you know, it's not so good. Or, you know, the example I always give is parks and wildlife doing peatland restoration on the top of the mountain and the, you know, forestry company draining it for sika spruce at the bottom of the mountain. And I like, you know, it's both peat soils, they're hydrologically connected. You know, how can you think that, you know, or the conflicts between commonage, you know, that would be a common thing. And we've talked about this in episode 100, where you like, the largest cost for peatland restoration in the uplands was helicoptering in sheep fencing. So, you know, but how do you change, you know, what is an entrenched way of sheep farming in the uplands? You can't. The common age rights exist. You gotta kind of work around them. And you know, okay, it might cost a lot of money to helicopter up sheep fencing, but if that's what you gotta do if you want to restore the peatland land, maybe that's what you gotta do. Because otherwise the peatland, you know, it's not gonna restore itself. That's the reality.

I don't remember the number of the episodes, but one of the episodes that happened between hundred and this one was Khan Project, where huge part of that was restoration of the peatlands. And that was, you know, the very positive vibe I got from this is that a lot of these landowners, once they were shown things and, you know, like, the big problem is always like, oh, there's a project that takes four years and then what? And a lot of these landowners, they didn't want to get people and contractors to work because they want to be taught how to do this, because they want to continue to do that. It was like, wow, that was great. And it was like, no, no, no, no, I, I, I'm going to do it. You show me how to do this. Because I. So that was, you know, there are good things happening.

I know one of the things when Ryan McIntyre came over from, you know, the Crown alliance in Canada, and he was looking at the situation in Wicklow, he was saying a big element of how they improved native woodland restoration and the negative impacts of their commercial forestry, because they have commercial forestry on state lands there as well, was getting the contractors involved. And he said it got to the stage where the contractors were calling out bad practice and they wouldn't go to the sites. So we're a ways from that. And I think if you go up to, we can do that this afternoon if you want, and we can go and look at some big Cicus Bruce plantations with basically no visible mitigation. The silt from that is running off into the nearest watercourse and they're often blue Dot catchments, so they're on paper our most protected. But yet the state is its policy conflict. And I think resolving some of those policy conflicts are the bigger issues to that we're not going to fix today. But yeah, I would say that's if I was the new Biodiversity Minister. That's what I'd be looking at. Those areas of policy conflict where somebody's trying to move forward in terms of conservation. They're maybe restoring a piece of peatland, but the neighbors are extracting it for horticultural mushroom farming or for wind farm turbine basis or, you know, and you know, trying to get things sorted on state land I think is maybe an easier ask because how are you, like, how are you going to ask a farmer to re wet their land when you're the state and you're draining yours? It just so I think, you know, the state needs to get its own house in order first.

And do you think it's going to happen with the Nature Restoration Law now? They writing up plans how to implement that and there's like a rewetting, for.

Example, wedding is a huge thing through. Right to know. We've recently had some requests in about land designation. There is a designation board and its hearings were always in secret and they never published any of the ecological reports related to them. When they did release them under foi, they were highly redacted. So we're still appealing that at the moment. So I think there is a lot of, a lot, you know, a lot of times when there's problematic or sensitive things, as you've mentioned with bovine tb, people don't want transparency for whatever reason and they're like, oh, if it was transparent then it would make our job more difficult. And it might, it might and we have to accept that. But I think, you know, if we are to resolve some of these big wicked problems like nitrates derogation or replanting on steep peat or hen harrier or freshwater power muscle, you know, some of these big things. And honestly it's not, these are not options really. These are things where we have infringement actions from Europe against us. So like we're actually, we have to do it. So I think, yeah, there's a, there's a body of work to be done on the policy side and you know, the funding is going to have to be allocated to do that. Whether it's, whether it's in deer management, peatland restoration here, one of the biggest challenges will be, I think, forestry on peat. And we thought that's a big issue.

So to wrap this up, what's your view on future of deer hunting? Because this is one of the episodes again that we talk about, about future of hunting. What do you think is the future of deer hunting in Ireland? What are those changes? When do you think they're going to be implemented and then, then more broadly, how do you see the future of nature and nature restoration, biodiversity in Ireland.

Over the coming years? In some ways the decision of the government, even though it seems a bit kind of haphazard with, as we said, maybe an own goal initially of extending the mail season, not really focusing on the data side of things, which I think, you know, is, is missing a legacy issue which hopefully will be resolved going forward. I think that's, that's got to be key. It's got to be data driven in terms of deer management, partly because there won't be the resources to do it otherwise. And then in terms of getting more people into hunting, I think, yeah, the mentoring scheme is not a bad idea. How, how deer management works on the detender, we don't know yet. One of the ideas that I put forward on the subcommittee that was dealing with public and semi state lands was the idea, you know, the way IFI have seasonal bailiffs, so in the spawning time particularly they bring on seasonal bailiffs and they basically deputize them and go, you're an IFI guy now and you can go out and you can hand out tickets for not having your license or you can investigate pollution, incidents of stuff. There may be the option to do that in terms of mink eradication, deer management, those other areas now. So I think, you know, there would maybe be an appetite for people to get involved with some projects so effectively, say you've got a national park in Donegal, they go, we need a deer management plan. We've only got half a dozen shooting rangers, we can cover that whole thing. So they do recruitment every year in the deer season to bring on hunters effectively to cover that. And so maybe there has got to be solutions to some of these things that work. I think the key thing is if they can integrate local hunters into the solution, then they'll probably get good buy in and also those local hunters will know the local landowner. So it's all, it's more of a community driven, it's more community driven and I think providing some supports maybe under the areas that we talked about like the larders, the, the chillers, the disposal of, of carcasses that aren't fit for the food chain, all those type of things. If they could be incorporated in areas maybe initially in Wicklow as a pilot, that would probably be the way, the way they would, would get a lot of traction. But we, we don't know yet. We don't know because the tender has only been awarded the project manager has just been appointed. So I think. Yeah. And probably one of your future podcasts will be with the project manager. I think that would be. That would be a good one. Once they announce what the plan is, I think there'll be a lot of interest among landowners, among foresters and the general public because we're all seeing more digitized year. And I think everyone wants to know what, you know, what this tender will bring. Will it bring changes for hunters? Will it bring changes for leases?

Well, we're going to find out. That's probably going to be in episode 300. We're going to see Ashley. Ladies and gentlemen, Ashley Glover, who is like, once every 100 episodes in my podcast.

Yeah. Yes. 300.

Appreciate it.