Current status: Answered by Jim Fairlie on 24 September 2024
To ask the Scottish Government what policy measures and incentives it is considering in order to reach its commitment to increase the national deer cull by 25% or 50,000 deer each year.
The Scottish Government remains committed to modernising deer management to tackle high deer numbers, specifically in order to help us to achieve our biodiversity and carbon objectives. We continue to pursue a range of actions to deliver this commitment.
The Scottish Government’s future legislative programme has been set out as part of the 2024-25 Programme for Government. The Natural Environment Bill will be introduced this Parliamentary year, which will bring forward significant reforms to the Deer (Scotland) Act 1996.
In the meantime we are working on those Deer Working Group recommendations that do not require primary legislation through the Strategic Deer Board.
In addition to this there are three pilot incentive schemes led by NatureScot and the Cairngorms National Park Authority which will launch this autumn to financially support deer managers to control numbers of deer in specific parts of Scotland in response to the climate and nature emergencies.