Hunters sold licenses to shoot red deer

Licenses to shoot protected red deer in the vicinity of Killarney National Park are being sold to American hunters for “substantial sums”, it has been claimed.

The practice has been slammed as “an abuse of our national heritage” by the Wild Deer Association of Ireland (WDAI), the national body for deer management and conservation.

In recent weeks, both the Department of Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural, and Gaeltacht Affairs and management in the Killarney National Park have been given detailed reports of at least one instance where a Killarney red stag was shot by a tourist who said he paid thousands of euro to a commercial company for the experience.