Deer and the laws of attraction

THERE’S a lot of talk about the possibilities reintroduced golden and white-tailed eagles create for attracting tourists to the west coast, but what about animals that have been here thousands of years?

This summer cars could be seen parked on roadsides around Killarney National Park while their occupants looked over ditches and hedges at magnificent red deer, grazing peacefully but observant of the onlookers.

The native Killarney herd is believed to be here for anything from 7,000 to 10,000 years and is a definite tourist attraction. But beautiful as they might be, the deer are not to everyone’s liking. They can be a nuisance to farmers and other landowners and are involved in traffic accidents when they roam outside the boundaries of the national park.