High fencing keeping deer out of woods ‘essential’

A CONTROVERSIAL deer fencing project is “absolutely essential” to ensure the future survival of oakwoods in Killarney National Park, the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) insisted yesterday.

The service also answered critics by stating that the EU authorities, in Brussels, had approved the €700,000 project and were meeting a substantial part of the cost.

The Killarney Nature Conservation Group (KNCG), which made a complaint to Brussels earlier this year, has hit out strongly at the new fencing and has claimed that machines involved in its erection have caused damage in the park.

But, Killarney National Park manager Eamon Meskell said, by keeping deer out, the scheme was allowing the woods, which have oaks several hundred years old, to regenerate.

Up to 200 acres of woodland in the Ullauns, Poulgower and Gortroe areas are being enclosed by high fencing, which is described as environmentally-friendly.

The woodlands involved amount to about 8% of total woodland in the park.

Rhododendron has been cleared from the selected woodlands, but young oaks are not being allowed grow because they are eaten by Red and Sika deer.

“It is absolutely essential that deer are kept out of these areas from a conservation point of view, if the old woodlands are to survive,” Mr Meskell said.

Mr Meskell also rejected claims that the fencing was in breach of the national park management plan.

“It could then be taken down easily and transferred to other areas,’’ he said.

KNCG spokesman Michael O’Sullivan said the project was flawed in that excluded all grazers would alter the woodland ecology.

“What is required is to achieve a natural, sustainable level of grazing by a cull of the deer and feral goat populations, coupled with the complete exclusion of trespassing sheep.”