Presentation to Aberdeen City Council Petition Committee

Petition RequestsOver 250 city residents request:

1. Immediate cease to the arbitrary deer culling in Aberdeen city – at a minimum until a count is done

2. Complete disclosure of all costs associated with the ‘Tree for Every Citizen Scheme’ across the city

3. Comfort letter to be sought from SNH/Forestry Commission to avoid any further taxpayer liability for this scheme

Deer Culling Stop Culling Deer – at least for now:

◦ The last SNH count could not find more than 19 deer

◦ As well as the 35 animals killed in the first year, poaching is taking place – remains of c. 5 animals found in January 2014

◦ Trees can be planted without culling – especially since fencing (previously reported to be too expensive) and tall tree guards were deployed

◦ The SNH Guidelines for deer management are just that; some local authorities (including Glasgow), landowners’ and gamekeepers’ associations, and animal welfare organisations disagree with the SNH.

Costs◦ Proponents of the Tullos Hill tree planting

promised it would be cost-neutral◦ Attempts to uncover the actual cost show this not

to be the case, with £169,000 costs uncovered – the actual figure is likely to be higher

◦ As the public consultation promised a cost-neutral scheme, the public have the right to know all of the costs actually incurred for the Tree for Every Citizen scheme

◦ Officers derailed a proposal to keep Tullos as Meadow, enhancing its features claiming this would be more expensive than the Tree for Every Citizen Scheme: what calculations were used to reach this conclusion?

Comfort Letter ◦The 1996 planting on Tullos failed,

cost to taxpayers was £43,800.◦There is evidence to suggest this

current attempt at planting will also fail

◦A comfort letter should be sought from the Forestry Commission to protect the taxpayer from any further penalties being charged for future failures

Timeline 24th November 2008 Forest Research, Report:

The letter continues there may be a chance of some trees becoming established, hardly a guarantee of success warranting another financial risk. Since the city’s officers and rangers must have seen this report - why did they persist with a scheme likely to fail again?

Timeline 4 November 2010 – The previous phase to plant trees fails. SNH

bills Aberdeen for £43,800 for this failure – this bill is chased in March 2011; when SNH warned the council their liability may reach £120,000.

The decision is made to throw good money after bad. None of these reasons for scepticism is shared with the public in the consultation. Who took the decision to push this scheme further?

Timeline November 2010 – SNH, Aberdeen City operatives communicate on

how to manage the public over the undoubted backlash against the planned cull:

◦ Non lethal methods ruled out – why?

◦ Public are to be ‘managed’ lest they object to the culling. This casts the die from the outset for a biased and flawed public consultation document.

Timeline 28 January 2011 - The Public Consultation Closes

◦ Consultation makes no mention of the planned cull; is this the ‘management of the public’ that was planned when the cull was planned?

◦ The consultation talks about rabbit fencing; making many people think that the consultation has covered all the aspects of what will be done

◦ The consultation promises the public this scheme won’t cost money

◦ The consultation does not say anything about the scale of planting, which would if it succeeded turn Tullos Hill, a popular meadow environment important to wildlife, into a forest.

Timeline 1 March 2011– Peter Leonard reports to the H&E Committee re. the Tullos

Scheme:

“This will be funded through the Scottish Rural Development Programme and other grant funding which is achievable and cost neutral. The funding package includes 5 years funding for post planting management to ensure successful establishment of the trees. …In the medium to long term these woodlands will have the capability to generate sustainable income through the sale of timber and timber products especially with the government support for biomass fuels. …If the Committee decide not to endorse the proposed deer management programme and require the Tullos Hill site to be deer fenced this would cost in the region of £25k-£50k. This would be depending on whether a perimeter fence was constructed (approx. £25k) or smaller internal compartments (approx. £50k) are created. …These additional costs would not attract grant funding and Scottish Natural Heritage would, in any event, require a reduction cull” By the time this report is out, it is should be very clear to its

proponents that the scheme is likely to fail, is not cost neutral, the wrong size tree guards allowed the deer browsing and sales of the non-existent timber were highly unlikely. The scheme’s known downsides were not given to councillors or the public (Note – Aileen Malone demanded £225,000 for this fencing from the public or the deer would be culled)

Timeline The Housing & Environment Committee reacts to outcry from public

and animal welfare charities including the Scottish SPCA

◦ Demands £225,000 from the public by May or the deer will be culled This demand is deemed blackmail by public and charities ‘Abhorrent and Absurd’ to kill healthy deer to protect trees

that don’t even exist – Scottish SPCA Aileen Malone called for a verbal report, not a written one, for May

2012 H&E committee. This prevented objectors from having an automatic right to speak. New information had come to light – such as the cost of the previous failure, the omission of the secretly planned cull from the public consultation, and no explanation of the £225,000 demand can be requested. Whether to allow speakers is put to the vote and defeated: The scheme is to go ahead, and none of the facts previously omitted are heard that day

Malone tells press ‘only about one’ resident contacted her to object to the scheme – she is forced to retract her misinformation.

The petition signed by thousands is handed to Aileen Malone and ignored.

The formal objections of 3 community councils is ignored.

The Hill Before The Scheme

The Hill Before The Scheme

The Hill Before The Scheme

A Few Facts An animal charity offered an expert, free of charge, to

advise on how to plant trees without killing deer, something he had achieved for another Scottish local authority. Without even speaking to this expert Aberdeen City Council declined the offer.

When asked in writing if the city owed money for the previous failure, then Chief Exec Watts replied ‘no’. When confronted with letters demanding £43,800, Watts then said she didn’t think this was relevant because the debt had been settled a few weeks before the question was asked.

The city approved CJ Piper’s report which among other things referred to the thousands of objectors and community council objectors as a “minority but potentially influential and vociferous

protagonists “ – this minority was thousands and 3 CCs Fencing was deemed too expensive and the deer cull was

deemed economical. Fencing was still erected, costing thousands.

What The Save The Tullos Hill Deer Group Thinks The citizens have been given misinformation about what the

scheme entailed when the cull & size of the plantation for Tullos was left out of the consultation

The citizens have been mislead over a ‘cost neutral’ scheme The unprecedented demand from the public for money for fences

or deer would be shot outraged citizens and animal charities alike No logical reason was given for not listening to non-lethal means

to grow the trees. (It was suggested that tree guards had visual impact – the current visual impact leaves much to be desired)

Shooting was done in secret with no warning to people that hunters would be shooting high powered weapons; the city’s risk register had no problem with this – quite a contrast for the security measures we see when there is a baton or a Christmas tree in town

Given that the hill is not likely to support the trees as shown before, and given the foregoing:

The Save The Tullos Hill Deer campaign wants to ensure such abuses of public trust and money ARE NEVER REPEATED

Cost of the ‘Cost-Neutral’ Scheme• The Tullos area planting 2011/12 fiscal year = est.

£40K

Cost of the ‘Cost-Neutral’ Scheme

The costs shown on these slides capture only the information that was uncovered by research; the entire costs need to be researched and shared with the public – who were told this was cost neutral – and less expensive than keeping and enhancing meadow- land (2012 figures unk)£2011 £40K + 2013 £86K = £126K. Add £43,800 for previous failure; minimum : £169 800

Tullos Today

November 2012 – remember tree guards had ‘visual impact’ – so culling the deer was preferred. Tree guards now dominate.

Tullos Today

April 2014 – despite winning awards, the hill is hardly beautiful. Weeds and deer caused the previous failure. Thousands were spent on weed control

Tullos Today

March 2015 – three years on. Deer culled; trees not thriving; weeds seem to overtake tree guards.Cost to taxpayer so far, in my estimation – minimum of £170,000.

Tullos The Recommended Future

1. That this committee agrees with all three petition requests

2. That experts independent of those who implemented, supported and/or financially benefitted from this scheme, without any vested interest in deer culling or woodland creation be invited to examine the robustness of the scheme, how it was managed, and its costs – particularly in light of the report saying it is unlikely trees will successfully mature given the soil conditions

3. The re-establishment of the biodiverse meadowland should be reconsidered, the costings examined that said it was too expensive be evaluated independently, and in due course should the tree scheme fail, the meadowland we had be regenerated

4. That like for e.g. Glasgow City Council, Aberdeen looks to non-lethal deer management, and recognises that the SNH guidelines for deer populations are non-binding and are indeed controversial, and should not be accepted

Tullos – Questions & Answers

◦ The petitioners recognise that many of the facts (some known by the scheme’s proponents for quite some time) that would have caused councillors concern when agreeing to the scheme were not laid before the H&E Committee in May 2012. The petitioners feel that some councillors would indeed have come to different conclusions had more information been allowed to be put to the H&E Committee when they were uncovered.

◦ The petitioners applaud the mechanism used today to bring these matters to light, and look forward to bringing the Petitions Committee’s response to this petition back to the wider group at the end of this meeting.

Appendix – some further myths dispelled

Myths & Facts ‘Deer have no natural predators – so we have to cull

them’ ‘Deer destroy forests; we need more forests’ Fact: it is more than 350 years since the last natural

predators were wiped out. In that time, deer have not over-run the land – but forest coverage in Scotland has increased:◦ “They showed that there were 2,982,000 hectares of woodland

across England, Scotland and Wales, representing 13 per cent of Britain’s land area - a massive increase on the 5% tree cover we had when the Commission was formed some 90 years earlier.” http://www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/CMON-4UUM6R

◦ Foxes take fawns; dogs are attacking deer; and poachers are taking animals across Scotland and on Tullos and Kincorth Hills

Myths & Facts Chris Piper “Because the roe deer population on Tullos Hill is currently

much higher than the land can support, there is very little variety of vegetation growing and deer suffer as a result. Hungry deer also present a serious risk to themselves and motorists when they cross busy roads in search of food. Roe deer are a natural part of the woodland ecology. We are anxious to recreate a habitat for deer, squirrels, birds, bats and the full spectrum of woodland wildlife."

Fact: Tullos supported far more than the 3 or 4 deer that the SNH says it can for at least 70 years. It also had birds, insects, and a wide range of plants before the scheme started. Removal of gorse and flowers has removed food and shelter for the wildlife that was there before the scheme; hardly helpful to endangered wild plants, bees and butterflies, let alone small mammals

Tullos has 140 acres of land . The SNH says this supports 3-4 deer Fact: Richmond Park, London official guide: “The largest Royal Park in

London (1,000 hectares/2,500 acres), and home to 650 deer. This pastoral landscape of hills and woodlands set amongst ancient trees, with plants, animals and butterflies, offers a peaceful respite to visitors.” - if the SNH logic were applied, Richmond would only have a maximum of 68 animals

What Other Organisations Think of the SNH Guidelines Glasgow City Council has NOT gone along with the SNH guidelines: Glasgow

has made a strong statement against these types of culls which can be found at:http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/291204/0089678.pdf and the relevant section starts on page 5.”

Here are some relevant extracts:- “….collaborative deer management is not necessary for Roe

deer in urban environments as there is no scientific justification for this.

2.4 There is no mention of the positive role of wild deer on natural habitats. Large herbivores help to create and retain glades and rides within woodlands, which provide habitat for a range of other species.

2.5 This section of the Bill has the potential to perpetuate and reinforce the perception of deer as pest species. Whilst this will promote the interests of a minority who have a vested interest in deer management principally through culling, it goes against the reason for the inclusion of native wild deer on the Scottish Biodiversity List, Le. the appreciation of these animals by the general public who wish to see them left unharmed.

What Other Organisations Think of the SNH Guidelines Animal Concern “John Robins of Animal Concern has raised

a number of questions concerning deer culling. He points out that Glasgow, The Dear Green Place, with more parkland than any other Scottish city, has not resorted to deer culling yet woodlands in Glasgow continue to thrive and regenerate. He also raised concerns about the issue of deer causing road traffic accidents. Much is said about the risk caused by deer on roads but no hard figures have been produced for deer RTAs in the Aberdeen area and to put them in perspective any such figures would need to be compared with accidents caused by sheep wandering onto roads. Perhaps SNH and Police Scotland would then call for a sheep cull. A great deal is also made about there being no natural predators of deer in Scotland. There haven’t been any deer killing wild carnivores in Scotland for 335 years! Humans culled them all. Nature finds its own balance and our natural environment will adapt and survive without continued human interference. “

What Some Councillors Think Neil Cooney “the meadow scheme was raised in

committee with a call for reports on the financial costs and viability. The costs, according to officers, were too high and unsustainable in comparison to the tree scheme. It was a chance missed and now lost forever. The meadow would have provided one of the most breath-taking views of the city, it would also have generated its own mini ecosystem.” – was the meadowland really more expensive than what we have spent and must keep spending on the Tree Scheme? This should be examined.

Andy Finlayson (who before his election was denied opportunity to address H&E Committee) “Stuff your trees we want the deer”