Best Practice

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Welcome to Best Practice Guidance on the Management of Wild Deer in Scotland. A new revised set of 74 Best Practice guides was published in July 08. The guides have been developed by Scotland’s deer sector to provide you with the best information available on wild deer management in a format that is easy to access.

Subscribing to Best Practice

Best Practice Guidance is now available to download free of charge on this site. Laminated hard copies of the guides are also available for a one-off subscription fee of £15. Subscribers to the series will automatically receive new and revised guides as they are developed as well as information on up and coming Best Practice events.

To subscribe call Linzi Seivwright on 01463 725373 or download the subscription form below and return to DCS, along with a cheque or postal order.

subscription form(word doc)

At the heart of the guides is the need for clarity on the law, along with three central aims; safeguarding public safety, ensuring food safety and taking full account of deer welfare. Public confidence in these three issues is essential if wild deer management in Scotland is to maintain the respected of a wider audience at home and abroad. The guides are dynamic and practitioners are encouraged to debate and share ideas to help develop future editions. Revision will also be made in light of new research, changes to policy and new legislation .

Following Best Practice

Best Practice aims to provide legal guidance and guidance on how best to protect the three central aims of public safety, food safety and deer welfare (see overleaf). The Guides seek to support and reassure by detailing what the deer sector in Scotland would find acceptable rather than detailing prescriptive requirements. In this way the Steering Group recognise that there is often more than one way of doing something and welcome discussion of alternative approaches to protecting the central aims.

In the development of the concept, the Steering Group recognised that there will always be days, when for what ever reasons, things do not go according to plan. Following Best Practice is about being aware of what is required, aiming to deliver every day and seeking to rectify any situations where for what ever reason management activity has fallen short of Best Practice.

DCS Guides

In addition to Best Practice guides, this folder contains an additional suite of guides which has been developed solely to describe aspects of the work of The Deer Commission for Scotland.

Acknowledgements

The guides have been produced by DCS in partnership with a steering group comprising ADMG, BASC, BDS, FCS, LANTRA and SGA. DCS and the Steering group are extremely grateful to a wide range of professional and part-time deer managers, individual experts, students and organisations such as SSPCA and HSE who have given up their time to help ensure the quality of the guides

Guide Format

Format: Each guide is laid out in the following manner.

• This symbol highlights a legal requirement. It is an offence not to comply
• This symbol highlights an action or task required in order to safeguard public safety, food safety and animal welfare.
• This symbol highlights an action or task required in order to carry out the task effectively

Back ground text without a symbol attached is generally used to describe the following:

• Advantages & disadvantages associated with the method
• Situations where the method is appropriate.
• Examples of what could happen and advice on how to minimise.
• Procedures which reduce costs, reduce effort, or save time, or represent the ideal option if not constrained by limited time or money. The costs of implementing these may outweigh the benefits.

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