Before I go any further let me state I am not in agreement about what has gone on with this deer but I am taking it in context with the other 300.000 deer that are 'culled' each year ostensibly on conservation grounds. This deer was one in 300,000, magnificent though he was, and he may have been coming toward the end of his mighty reign due to his age. None of that makes it right.

We recently had a thread where humane slaughter of animals for meat was talked about a great deal. In some ways venison could actually be seen as likely to be more humane in its making than beef, lamb or pork. Imagine if you will, grazing the grass peacefully when BANG! and down you end. Dead. They say a good marksman can kill a deer outright with a single shot to the heart. No herding up, shoved into wagons, petrified journeys to a slaughterhouse... BANG! dropped in the fields you lived in. If it is true about the single shot and it always being done in the wild then could it not be more humane? I would take the advices of those who live in the country to tellme if this is the case.

The ethics of selling the death of an animal for a trophy seems quite wrong. In the case of a deer I presume most of the meat is used for consumption so it's not just about the trophy?

In short I have extremely mixed feelings on this subject. If they cold not have shooting rights woud we have so much extensive country left on which these animals and other game can breed? I know I would likely feel better off not having been born if I was raised simply for the sport of a marksman's bullet. Countryfolk say that many of these animals get a chance to escape. I have no idea how true that is. They also say that usually it is the weak, the injured and the infirm that are culled. This was not the case here was it?

It's all so mixed up emotions for sure. Magnificent beast, living his life as evolution intended (I am not saying evolution has intent!), shot down dead for a trophy. All we can hope maybe is that his death will now serve to better those lives of other deer?

In reality, sold as a trophy or not, our herds of deer face this end all over the country. If it is wrong for one it is wrong for all.

Quite whether he was the most magnificent animal in England depends on how we define magnificent. Many other animals fit the adjective depnding on your own personal definitions. What is good to see is so many here on Mudcat displaying their sense of feeling on the subject

mp