Bushy Park gates shut earlier while the annual deer cull runs

The Royal Parks has begun this year’s cull of fallow deer at Bushy Park, and visitors are being warned that the gates will shut earlier than usual while it runs.

A notice at the park sets out the hours. From the beginning of September for six weeks, and again from the beginning of November for six weeks, vehicle gates close at 7pm and pedestrian gates at 10.30pm. Both open again from 8am. Weekend opening is unchanged.

Why the Royal Parks culls deer at Bushy Park

About 320 red and fallow deer live in the park, which takes more than five million visits a year. Fallow deer have grazed there since the Tudor period. The red deer is the biggest land mammal native to these islands and wears a glossy red coat through the summer. The fallow is smaller, usually spotted, in shades from cream to a dark brown.

The cull is carried out with firearms. The Royal Parks says the herds have to be held at a sustainable size, because an unmanaged population would outgrow the food available and the animals would suffer. Welfare rather than income is the reason it gives: venison from the cull is sold, and the proceeds go towards deer feed and the wages of the wildlife officers who look after the herds. The British Deer Society endorses culling as best practice in managing a herd. So does the Deer Initiative of England and Wales.

Calls for contraception instead of a cull

Wildlife campaigners have asked why contraceptives or neutering are not used instead. The Royal Parks says oral contraceptives would not work, because urine and droppings from treated animals could contaminate the wider habitat, and that wild deer cannot be rounded up or handled for injections without causing severe stress and injury.

It also argues that a herd left to age with no juveniles coming through would end up with poor social structures. A cull also takes place at Richmond Park.