A Donegal County Councillor says that the idea of introducing wolves to the countryside to hunt deer should be blocked at all costs.
Cllr Michael McClafferty was speaking in response to a proposal by Wild Ireland owner Killian McLaughlin to reintroduce the wolf as the apex predator in Ireland to help control the increasing number of deer (read more here).
The number of collisions involving deer is rising weekly in Donegal and there are fears there could be a serious accident this winter.
Cllr Michael McClafferty has called for a Deer Culling Policy in Donegal as opposed to Mr McLaughlin’s idea that wolves co-exist in the Irish countryside.
The wolves proposal, Cllr McClafferty said “has to be blocked anyway.”
On the safety end of it, children won’t be safe. Walkers are not going to be safe. Farmers will have no peace with animals, calves, sheep etc.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” he told the November meeting of Donegal County Council.
Cllr McClafferty said there are problems with deer on every back road and main road in Donegal at present. Just last week he said that a jeep was badly smashed on the road alongside the Creeslough graveyard approaching Ards Forest.
“We are very lucky it wasn’t worse,” he said.
“The problem when this happens, there is nobody to claim off, nobody will take responsibility. Glenveagh don’t want to take responsibility.”
Cllr McClafferty said that deer should be culled in a humane way in the interests of road safety and to prevent the destruction of crops.
The motion was adopted and Donegal County Council is set to write to the National Parks and Wildlife Service on the matter of a culling policy for the county.
