It is how farmed Deer are killed too, as ti is less stressful for them than being loaded into a lorry and taken to an abattoir.

It's a shame really they can't do that with all animals :( But inpracticle I suppose.

Interesting to learn that I am "bigotted" because I do not think that humans have the right to decide which creatures live and which die. I suppose if I supported this "culling" nonsense, I would have a right to an opinion. The type of "Canned hunting" which goes on in such places as Africa will always be immoral in my bigotted opinion. I thought the moderators were in place to screen out insults! Apparently not.

I don't know of any canned hunting that goes on in Africa, I'm against big commercial shoots, and shooting towers, they really aren't the sort of hunting or shooting the people I know condone, anyway, this is from a friend of mine who is a professional deer stalker, thought it may be of interest.....

Deer stalking in this country is done in different ways depending on the objectives of the land owner, and carried out in varying methods depending on the location, terrain, species, and purpose for the need to cull deer.

They all share one common objective though, and that is to manage the population of that particular species, and maintain a balance of numbers which assures a healthy herd which the environment that supports them can sustain, and to protect that environment from damage.
The indigenous species of deer in this country have no other natural predators any more, only us.

With the modern age of instant information, there has come an equal and opposite supply of instant misinformation. That is, when something is inaccurately reported before the actual truth is produced, everyone already believes the misguided version.

The recent case of the "Exmoor Emperor" is a classic example of this.

Newspaper headlines like "Britain's largest animal shot dead" and "Emperor murdered in cold blood", are typical journalist rubbish in an attempt to sell more copies. Unfortunately, sensationalist headlines like this actually have the desired effect, regardless of the accuracy of the content within the article.

The Red deer is the largest species native to this country. The "Emperor" was a Red deer, but certainly not the largest one in the country, but you can see how easily it was misconstrued as such.

There are currently somewhere in the region of 1.5 million wild deer in the UK, of which around 350,000 are legally culled every year. This is done out of necessity.
There are very strict regulations and laws concerning how this is done, ensuring it's carried out by professional people who are qualified and certified, and almost ALL of the venison produced from it is put into the human food chain.

There is no dedicated government body which singly maintains this cull, it's done and financed pretty much universally by private land owners.

This is where the sporting aspect has its place.

Selling accompanied sporting stalking greatly helps finance the management of deer in this country, and has further reaching financial benefit to all areas where stalking takes place.
The witness reports regarding the stag on Exmoor largely describe what appears to have been a perfectly legitimate stalking exercise. The "throat cutting" and carcass removal all sound very much like the animal was being correctly prepared for the food chain by "bleeding" and "gralloching" where the pooled blood and Viscera were removed form the carcass as soon as possible after death to ensure no contamination.

There is no law or indeed any recommendation as to which age of animals should be shot, but it is generally accepted by many that older animals are best removed before they suffer age related problems, this would also mirror the natural selection process by other predators.
The Exmoor stag was reported to have been 12 years old and was shot during the Rut.
12 years is pretty old for a red stag, despite what the aforementioned journalists will have you believe, and he'll have had at least 6 years previously to pass on his genes. The rut falls within the legal season when you can cull deer, so again there is no wrong doing with that aspect.

Having "celebrity deer" such as this beast are what causes public hysteria, most people are quite simply otherwise uninterested, and never hear of what happens in the countryside until something is brought to the media's attention, not realising this is no different to the other 349,999+ deer legally shot in the same year.

Interesting! I would suggest "this culling nonsense" has nothing to do with your right to an opinion although the inability of many people to disagree without becoming disagreeable is of more relevance.
Jeff.