Environment Minister Roseanne Cunningham is being urged to mount an investigation into an incident that led to the deaths of 26 starving deer.
There have also been calls for an inquiry within the civil service into the role of the quangos in managing the country’s wild red deer.
The demands follow a cull of 26 deer, mainly stags, in a Forestry Commission Scotland plantation, near Loch Arkaig, in Lochaber, which has provoked an angry backlash from conservation bodies, ghillies, stalkers and estate workers.
The animals got into a fenced plantation of trees to forage for food as temperatures plummeted to below minus 20C.
It is claimed agreement had been reached for local ghillies and stalkers to eject the deer the following day.
But, when 15 of them returned 24 hours later, they found the deer had been shot, allegedly, by forestry employees.
Invergarry stalker John Cameron, 46, of the adjacent Kingie Estate, said: “I find it unbelievable that this slaughter took place, considering what I understood had been agreed the previous day.”
A Forestry Commission spokesman said a number of options had been considered over three to four days after severe damage had been caused to about 50% of plantation stock.
“Unfortunately, the only practical solution was to cull them,” said the spokesman. “It was professionally and humanely handled, using the most feasible solution.”
But the incident has prompted fears from stalkers that jobs could be at risk.
“I have been inundated with telephone calls from stalkers sharing their concern for their livelihood because of the mounting anti-deer attitude by many relevant conservation quangos,” said Iain Thornber, a prominent west coast stalker, from Lochaline on the Morvern peninsula.
In his letter to the environment minister, he wants her to look into the role of the Forestry Commission Scotland, Scottish Natural Heritage and the Deer Commission for Scotland in managing deer in tandem with deer stalkers and land managers in the private sector, whose jobs are dependent on deer.
He says the cull also raised animal welfare issues, and now wants to know whether the Forestry Commission had breached its own charters on wildlife management by failing to consult neighbours and the deer management group.
Peter Fraser, a stalker from Easter Auchallater, near Braemar, wants to see deer given the same protection as wildfowl and waders in extreme winter conditions, as recently experienced.
He added: “The cull at Arkaig was totally uncalled for. Anyone culling deer in those conditions has little thought or respect for the countryside.”