Cillian McLaughlin

When they go...

we go as well.

We can call deer, we can't pollinate our crops, but having a balanced ecosystem allows those invertebrates, those pollinators to thrive.

The plants that they need to eat and grow on, the ecosystem is so far out of balance.

And what's been suggested here today is just send the army out,

Never mind the danger of full metal jackets flying about the countryside.

If they miss, that keeps going.

And no matter how good of a marksman you are, you're going to miss at some point.

That bullet can keep going.

There's a lot of danger involved in what Michael's advocating, not only to humans, but also to the wider ecosystem as a whole.

And that's what we need to start looking at.

We cannot just say the deer is the villain here, get the deer out of the country, because then it'll be something else.

And we'll be back on in a couple of years' time, maybe talking about exterminating foxes, exterminating badgers.

Well, by all means, by all means.

I mean, I'm a scientist and I'm evidence-based and I have a legal background as well, so evidence is very important to me.

The evidence is that when deer overpopulate, you do, it does create deforestation.

I mean, there's scientific studies backing that up, but it's how it's controlled.

And I mean, at the moment with the rise from 1995 to, you know, where 5,000 deer were culled up to 2023, where there's 78,000 deer being culled and it's still increasing and we're still on the radio talking about, you know, if culling is the answer, why is the problem getting worse?

I don't necessarily agree with, you know, that people should be afraid out walking in Italian national parks because, you know, again, there's no evidence that wolves attack people in Italy.

Dogs are a very effective way of protecting livestock.