Minister for the Environment Dick Roche has moved to protect red stags in Kerry after a controversial decision by the National Parks and Wildlife Service to place red deer on the open-season list for the first time in 35 years.
Licences issued to hunters earlier this summer, before the Minister signed the order, are being revoked and amended, a spokesman for the department said yesterday. It will remain illegal to shoot male red deer in Co Kerry from Thursday, when the shooting season for stags opens throughout the country.
Mr Roche last week signed the order placing red female and antlerless deer on the wild deer hunted-species list. The females and antlerless reds can be shot between November 1st and February 28th, to control numbers. All deer within the Killarney National Park remain protected. Removing the antlered stags from the list of deer that could be hunted in Kerry was a means of deterring trophy hunters, the spokesman said.
The decision to place Kerry red deer on the hunted-species list was taken as "it had become clear in recent years that deer numbers have been increasing dramatically". There was now evidence of a large population of red deer over a wide area of the county, the spokesman added.
It was for one year only and was open to review on an annual basis.
However, chairman of the Kerry Deer Society Noel Grimes has described the amendments as "ridiculous" and "a cop-out" by higher management in the wildlife service.
"Who is going to monitor it? Red stags have been shot and decapitated within yards of the national park even when there were full restrictions."