Deer cull subsidy scheme

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 1 of 5 Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Red Deer Man­age­ment and Ven­ison Sub­sidy Scheme Grant Moir, Chief Exec­ut­ive, 8 Octo­ber 2025 Sub­sidy Scheme Estab­lished With­in Terms of Sub­sidy Con­trol Act 2022 This doc­u­ment sets out the terms of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s (the ​“Park Author­ity”) Red Deer Man­age­ment and Ven­ison Sub­sidy Scheme (“the Scheme”)

The Park Author­ity, hav­ing con­sidered the sub­sidy con­trol prin­ciples set out in the Sub­sidy Con­trol Act 2022 (“SCA”) and being of the view that sub­sidy giv­en under the Scheme will be con­sist­ent with those prin­ciples, imple­ments the Scheme under its powers in sec­tion 9 of the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000 in accord­ance with sec­tion 10(1) of the SCA.

The Scheme as estab­lished relates to the man­age­ment of red deer only. Any ref­er­ence to ​“deer” is deemed with­in this Scheme to refer to red deer only.

Date of Sub­sidy Scheme Estab­lished Under the SCA

The Deer Man­age­ment and Ven­ison Sub­sidy Scheme is made on 10 Octo­ber 2025, takes effect from 21^st Octo­ber 2025, and will end on 31 March 2026.

The Park Author­ity may at any time extend the dur­a­tion of the Scheme by amend­ing the end date provided that the Park Author­ity is sat­is­fied that the Scheme remains rel­ev­ant and com­pli­ant with al legis­lat­ive requirements.

Pur­pose of Sub­sidy Scheme and Pub­lic Policy Object­ives Delivered By Subsidy

The Park Author­ity has a stat­utory respons­ib­il­ity under the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000 to ensure that the aims of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park are col­lect­ively achieved in a coordin­ated way. The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (CNPPP) is the key stra­tegic plan­ning tool deliv­er­ing this stat­utory respons­ib­il­ity. The CNPPP approved by the Park Author­ity board is agreed by Scot­tish Min­is­ters. The cur­rent CNPPP is in place for the peri­od April 2022 to March 2027. Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2022 – 27 — Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

The CNPPP Object­ive A4 focuses on the agreed pri­or­ity object­ives for address­ing deer and herb­i­vore impacts on the oth­er Nation­al Park pri­or­ity object­ives. Deer are import­ant spe­cies in the Nation­al Park, provid­ing income, employ­ment and enjoy­ment. How­ever, there is a need to reduce the

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 2 of 5 impacts of deer and oth­er herb­i­vores in key areas of the Nation­al Park to enable peat­land and wood­land work to pro­ceed at the scale neces­sary to meet the Park Authority’s cli­mate and nature com­mit­ments. In par­tic­u­lar, there is a need to reduce deer num­bers where they are hav­ing a sig­ni­fic­ant impact on exist­ing hab­it­ats or pre­vent­ing bene­fi­cial hab­it­at change.

There are cur­rently pub­lic policy con­cerns that in cer­tain places there are too many wild deer that will neg­at­ively affect work to tackle the nature and cli­mate crisis. There­fore, mak­ing sure deer are at sus­tain­able levels is import­ant in the battle to fight cli­mate change. Deer man­age­ment is integ­ral to deliv­er­ing the pub­lic interest pri­or­it­ies set out in the Park Authority’s CNPPP. These include pri­or­it­ies for wood­land expan­sion (both pro­duct­ive and mont­ane wood­land), peat­land res­tor­a­tion and des­ig­nated sites, as well as employ­ment. Because deer have no nat­ur­al pred­at­ors in the UK, cull­ing is the only means of effect­ive deer man­age­ment and con­trol of deer numbers.

Research indic­ates that redu­cing red deer num­bers and mov­ing towards a more bal­anced stag to hind ratio can res­ult in a sport­ing resource of bet­ter-qual­ity stags with great­er car­cass weights and bet­ter antlers, as well as improved fecund­ity in hinds and reduced winter mor­tal­ity. Access to improved graz­ing and wood­land shel­ter can also improve the car­cass weight and wel­fare of red deer. The Park Author­ity has estab­lished that redu­cing the dens­ity of deer has res­ul­ted in sig­ni­fic­ant wood­land regen­er­a­tion and hab­it­at res­tor­a­tion. Very low dens­it­ies are required to enable tree seed­lings to estab­lish but, in time, with increased food avail­ab­il­ity and shel­ter, the hab­it­at can again sup­port more deer. There are there­fore wel­fare advant­ages as well as hab­it­at advant­ages to mov­ing in this direction.

Exist­ing pub­lic policy pro­vi­sions sup­port­ing man­age­ment of deer and deer num­bers have not been suf­fi­cient to con­trol deer pop­u­la­tions to required deer dens­ity in spe­cif­ic geo­graph­ic areas with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. This has been evid­enced by repeated mon­it­or­ing of deer dens­it­ies over vari­ous deer man­age­ment groups with­in the Cairngorms.

This sub­sidy is estab­lished to incentiv­ise an increase in the num­ber of hinds and calves culled on land in and bor­der­ing the Cairngorms Nation­al Park to reduce deer dens­ity and impacts in the Cairngorms.

The Park Authority’s assess­ment is that this sub­sidy is a neces­sary addi­tion­al pub­lic policy inter­ven­tion to com­ple­ment exist­ing meas­ures already imple­men­ted in order to pro­mote and secure required levels of action on deer man­age­ment that are suf­fi­cient to achieve the agreed pub­lic policy object­ives estab­lished for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park through the CNPPP. If sub­sidy is not provided, there is a sig­ni­fic­ant risk that the num­ber of deer culled will not increase toward tar­get levels. This is highly likely to have a det­ri­ment­al effect on the nat­ur­al envir­on­ment. This will res­ult in fail­ure to achieve both the tar­get for deer dens­ity and also wider tar­gets on net zero, wood­land expan­sion, peat­land res­tor­a­tion and moor­land management.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 3 of 5 As such, the Park Author­ity has determ­ined that a sub­sidy to seek to encour­age more pro­act­ive deer man­age­ment through cull­ing is an essen­tial tool to imple­ment as a tri­al to sup­port deliv­ery of policy object­ives around achiev­ing reduced deer dens­it­ies in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. This is expec­ted to have wider pos­it­ive impacts in sup­port­ing deliv­ery of oth­er agreed CNPPP pub­lic policy objectives.

The sub­sidy is con­sist­ent with the Energy and Envir­on­ment Prin­ciples estab­lished in the SCA. The sub­sidy scheme’s policy object­ives seek to sup­port the nat­ur­al envir­on­ment, and sup­port action on the cli­mate and nature emer­gency. Receipt of the sub­sidy does not relieve the recip­i­ent from any liab­il­it­ies arising from its respons­ib­il­it­ies as a pol­luter under the rel­ev­ant law of Scotland.

The sub­sidy is assessed to have min­im­al impacts on com­pet­i­tion and dis­tor­tion of the eco­nomy, as covered in the sec­tion on Scheme design below.

The Park Author­ity recog­nises the poten­tial for the sub­sidy to res­ult in an over-sup­ply of car­casses for the wild ven­ison industry although the risk is deemed low giv­en that big­ger culls have been taken in these DMGs before. The Park Author­ity is lead­ing on asso­ci­ated pro­ject work to devel­op enhanced pro­cessing capa­city to help ensure that the deer car­casses res­ult­ing from increased cull levels which this sub­sidy tar­gets may be brought effect­ively and eco­nom­ic­ally into the food sup­ply chain.

Anti­cip­ated Sub­sidy Scheme Budget

The Scheme has an anti­cip­ated budget of £40,000 to £60,000 in the ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ fin­an­cial year, end­ing 31 March 2026.

Con­di­tions, Form and Cal­cu­la­tion of Sub­sidy Scheme

There is no auto­mat­ic enti­tle­ment to sub­sidy under the Scheme and any fund­ing is provided at the dis­cre­tion of the Park Author­ity. Any award is sub­ject to the Park Authority’s assess­ment against the Scheme con­di­tions, Park Author­ity approv­al and accept­ance of stand­ard terms and con­di­tions of grant. The con­di­tions, form and cal­cu­la­tion of the deer man­age­ment are:

1. The Scheme is open to all own­ers or occu­pi­ers who are obliged in terms of the Deer (Scot­land) Act 1996 (the ​“1996 Act”) to sub­mit deer cull data to NatureScot where those own­ers or occu­pi­ers own or occupy land with­in at least part of the des­ig­nated area of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park: areas covered by the South Grampi­an Deer Man­age­ment Group or West Grampi­ans Deer Man­age­ment Group (“eli­gible applicants”).

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 4 of 5

1. The CNPPP tar­gets aver­age open range red deer dens­it­ies in each deer man­age­ment group of a max­im­um of five to eight per km². The move­ment of deer across land man­age­ment bound­ar­ies jus­ti­fies the Scheme being open to all eli­gible applic­ants to assist in man­aging total deer dens­ity with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park toward this policy objective.

2. The Park Author­ity will invite interest from eli­gible applic­ants to par­ti­cip­ate in the Scheme. The Park Author­ity will also advert­ise the Scheme on its web­site to allow applic­a­tions to come from any oth­er body. The Park Author­ity will assess all applic­a­tions for eligibility.

3. The Park Author­ity will agree a deer cull tar­get for ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ with each eli­gible applicant.

4. An eli­gible applic­ant must achieve a red deer hind cull of at least 85% of their agreed ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ tar­get, as estab­lished under point 4, in order to be entitled to the sub­sidy. Sub­sidy cal­cu­la­tions will include fig­ures of calves culled with hinds as eli­gible for sub­sidy rates, and will be evid­enced by eli­gible applic­ants’ stat­utory deer cull data sub­mis­sions to NatureScot in terms of the 1996 Act or oth­er agreed forms of evid­ence as agreed in writ­ing in advance with the Park Author­ity. Eli­gible applic­ants must also provide proof of cull by sup­ply­ing game deal­er uplift receipts or anoth­er accept­able doc­u­mented proof of cull, eg receipts of pur­chase from a butchery business.

5. Sub­sidy will be provided as a grant cal­cu­lated at £100 per car­cass, paid for each car­cass in excess of 85% of the agreed ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ tar­get cull level for that eli­gible applic­ant. There­fore, as an illus­tra­tion, where the agreed ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ tar­get for an eli­gible applic­ant is 100 hinds they must achieve a cull of at least 85 deer to be eli­gible for sub­sidy. Where the tar­get is met in full with evid­ence of 100 car­casses, pay­ment will be £100 for each of 15 (100−85) hind car­casses + asso­ci­ated calves= £1,500 + £100 per asso­ci­ated calf.

6. Sub­sidy will not be capped.

7. The peri­od for cull­ing activ­ity eli­gible for sub­sidy is from 21^st Octo­ber 2025 to 31^st March

   1. Eli­gible applic­ants must secure any appro­pri­ate per­mis­sions to cull deer required to sup­port their oper­a­tions over this peri­od – approv­al for sub­sidy by the Park Author­ity shall not be deemed to con­fer approv­al to under­take deer culls. The oper­a­tion of this sub­sidy will be reviewed fol­low­ing 31 March 2026.

8. Terms of sub­sidy offered to eli­gible applic­ants will require that an accept­ance of an offer and pay­ment of sub­sidy will include a declar­a­tion that the recip­i­ent has not received oth­er public

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 5 of 5 sub­sidy to sup­port the activ­it­ies covered by this Scheme. Where pub­lic funds have been provided to sup­port activ­it­ies linked to the oper­a­tion of the Scheme, such funds must be dis­closed to and assessed by the Park Authority.

1. Data for the cull levels and tar­gets and also for the cull levels to be assessed as qual­i­fy­ing for sub­sidy rates with­in the Scheme will be gathered from the NatureScot 2025 deer count.

The sub­sidy is there­fore designed to incentiv­ise an increase in deer cull levels in the eli­gible areas, mit­ig­at­ing against envir­on­ment­al dam­age which could arise from any reduc­tion in his­tor­ic cull levels and sup­port­ing move­ment to more sus­tain­able future deer density.

The sub­sidy is paid in respect of the spe­cif­ic meas­ured level of deer culls com­pared with tar­get, as a sum per car­cass, there­fore pay­ing sub­sidy based on the spe­cif­ic out­put tar­geted rather than sup­port­ing invest­ment in any infra­struc­ture or adapt­a­tion required to sup­port an increase in cull­ing activ­ity. As such the sub­sidy is dir­ectly tar­get­ing the out­put sought of increased cull numbers.

The dis­tort­ive impacts of the sub­sidy are con­sidered to be min­im­al, giv­en the rel­at­ively small amounts likely to be paid to each indi­vidu­al recip­i­ent and in con­sid­er­a­tion of the costs to the eli­gible applic­ants incurred in achiev­ing the increased deer cull tar­geted by the subsidy.

Actu­al levels of sub­sidy paid to each recip­i­ent will be mon­itored and repor­ted to the Park Authority’s board or an appro­pri­ate com­mit­tee, and Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment at the end of each year in which the sub­sidy oper­ates in order to be trans­par­ent on Scheme impacts and to review poten­tial levels of dis­tor­tion cre­ated by the Scheme.