‘Do we want to be the island that wiped out all its deer?’

‘The world is watching us.’

That’s the warning call to householders from the community-owned South Uist estate,  Stòras Uibhist.

In less than a fortnight, residents will be voting for or against the eradication of the island’s deer.

A petition signed by 200 people suggests every last animal should be removed for health and safety reasons.

But the community landowner argues that would be going against the area’s economic interests.

The estate’s chief executive Darren Taylor said removing deer altogether would wipe deer stalking off the menu at Grogarry Lodge, the sporting lodge owned by Stòras Uibhist.

It would also obliterate the community’s growing venison sales income, which took in £25,000 last year, and supplies of which are sent free to food banks.

But Mr Taylor foresees a “much bigger economic reason”.

“Do we really want to be known as that island that wiped out all its deer?” asked Mr Taylor.

“From a tourism point-of-view that’s a terrible message to be putting out.

“You could go anywhere in the world, why would you go to that crazy island that got rid of its deer?”

Oh deer what did you do?…

Residents on South Uist say for some time they have been raising concerns about the way deer are being managed by landowners.

Canvassing by Bornish Community Council last year revealed three-quarters of 115 respondents had had a bad experience of deer in recent years, and close to 40% were in favour of removing the entire herd.

Damage to their cars, gardens and crops, and being more routinely bitten by ticks in their own gardens and other places like the play park were the main concerns.

The petitioners say cases of Lyme Disease, a tick-borne condition, are 200 times higher on South Uist than in the rest of Scotland and studies are underway in the area.

‘Landlord forcing its will on its own people’

Stòras Uibhist member Ronald Mackenzie, who has been instrumental in setting up the petition, could not be contacted for comment.

He told the Outer Hebrides newspaper Am Paipear: “For years, the community has tried and failed to make the estate understand the strength of negative feeling there is about the deer.

“We felt that an emergency general meeting was the only route left open to us.

“The facts on deer are clear — the links with our outrageously high incidence of Lyme disease, the damage they wreak on crops and gardens, these are the issues our community lives with — this is the reality we face.”

He added: “It’s heart-breaking to think that after 17 years of community ownership we are no further on that we were a century ago, a landlord forcing its will on its own people.”

Culling is ‘not enough’

Stòras Uibhist has announced a new cull plan at their recent annual general meeting and Mr Taylor admits there are too many deer.

But on social media, where this debate is playing out, Mr Mackenzie said: “It is not enough.”

He added: “They’ve proved that they can’t be trusted to cull the numbers required.

“They were forced into this action by the fact that the community were shocked at the numbers.

“Surely as a community we can think of better uses for Grogarry Lodge than subsidising the blood sports of rich toffs.”

‘We acknowledge the community’s concern’

Mr Taylor said inaccurate helicopter counts of earlier years led to the current situation but culling was being increased, although the population of deer must still reduce to around 600 to give a healthy balance.

He said: “We acknowledge the community’s concern. Our view is, yes there were too many deer, but we’re dealing with it, we’re culling them.

“The count gave us 1,198 deer. We said we were going to cull 140 hind, we actually culled 166.

“We said we were going to cull 45 calves and I think we have culled 53, and we said we were going to cull 60 stags and we are now past 100.

“It’s far and away the biggest cull that we have ever done on South Uist and we will do something similar again next year, we have a robust plan over the next three years.”

He added: “Uist has a problem with Lyme disease. We take our responsibilities really seriously and there are researchers that we work with who are carrying out extensive work around ticks and Uist at the moment.

“We are not pretending that Lyme disease is not important and we are not pretending that deer don’t play a part in spreading ticks.

“But what we absolutely maintain is good deer management is the way to do it and total eradication is just an unnecessary overreaction to the problem.”

Deer eradication vote will be ‘done in secret’

The EGM will take place on Monday, March 20, at 7pm, at Southend Community Hall.

The petitioners said the voting will be by secret ballot and all votes destroyed at the end of the evening with a shredder “so that when a clear result is agreed by all sides no one need know how anyone voted”.