Is it just me or have we all seen bigger stags than this "The biggest in the Land..."?

Of course I'm not voulenteering to cary him back to the car...

K

It'll be a burial at sea.

Worth a shoulder mount anyway.

I thought it was a good representative head of a lowland stag which was a year or two past his prime and starting to go back a little.

I've seen better no doubt, but he is a very decent stag.

What hasn't been clarified as far as I know is they have said a 300lb stag. Do they mean on the hook weight? If not then he isn't big at all but obviously a nice stag.

If on the hook weight is 300lb then that does make him a big stag but I am not familiar with the area and it may well be that they get bigger down in that neck of the woods.

The details are really not really important.

It's the way we hunters are depicted in the UK that's more important.

At this point in time, I have heard through friends that very large sums of cash are being offered by reporters hanging around locally

since the story broke to anybody who can name this hunter or anybody present at the hunt.

In this economical climate, I think it's only a matter of time before somebody will crack.

Where is IanF ?

He can probably enlighten us as to what's happening on the ground

The whole story and other I've seen are very fishy. The story itself seems contradictory. It was 'found dead' yet its head and body are missing off to the taxidermist and butcher? That it's all a 'mystery'???

Other stories I saw said it was 'legally hunted' but a 'wildlife expert' bemoaned that he shouldn't have been hunted during the rut so he could 'pass on his genes'...

If that is an actual picture of him then he doesn't seem too impressive to have in your trophy room even if you are claiming he was once, the biggest land mammal in the UK...

The other story I was from the Huffington Post (from someone that enjoys baiting me...)

In a country so screwed they outlawed their own beautiful tradition of fox hunting, I'm glad to hear they can still hunt red stag at all...

I must be an ass because I don't give 1 red f@#$!!!

There's some that miss the Stag and others that missed the opportunity.
If he was as big as all that he'll have already passed his genes on in previous ruts.

I read this story in today's US Today Newspaper in the US after having followed it on this forum since yesterday. This is total busshitt. This stag was not special, not outside the guidelines of normal hunting in UK, available for fair chase by all accounts. To hell again with the anti-hunting groups worldwide; they are un-informed, over emotional, overtly political, and mostly pussies. If not for the hunters, most species of game animals would not exist today. I want to go and protest something after hearing this story; maybe a racoon being slaughtered for tearing into our garage for the 50th time before I finally blowed it's head off when it hissed at me for the last time. Eloquently and respectfully, Mike

Aye, but had it been the beast of Caerbannog, they would be singing the hunter's praises!

Bloody wankers.

Well I Guess this was his Dad that I shot last season.



And was 347lbs on the hook

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ear...nimal-shot-dead.html
Emperor stag killed: anger after Britain's biggest wild animal shot dead
A red deer stag called the Exmoor Emperor - believed to be Britain's biggest wild animal - has been shot dead.

Deer lovers on the Devon and Somerset borders were enraged after finding out the well-known stag had been killed.

The giant stag of Southern Exmoor, which weighed more than 300lb and stood nearly 9ft was killed close to a busy main road in the middle of the annual rut.

Red deer stags are the biggest indigenous land animal left in Britain and Emperor was the largest living example.

It is not thought the deer was killed by poachers but by a licensed deer hunter.
But it has angered deer experts and wildlife enthusiasts who believe that wild red stags should be protected during the mating season.
Peter Donnelly, an Exmoor-based deer management expert with a lifetime's experience, said: "I am very concerned that people are stalking and shooting deer in the rut.

"It's a disgrace that this magnificent animal has been shot at this time because it could be that he didn't get a chance to rut properly this year - therefore his genes have not been passed on this time round.

"The poor things should be left alone during the rut - not harried from pillar to post," added Mr Donnelly.

"If we care about deer we should maintain a standard and stop all persecution during this important time of the year."

A deer enthusiast who did not want to be named said that earlier this month a group of people were out watching stags close to the spot where The Emperor was killed

The man, said a shot had been heard very close to the main Tiverton to Barnstaple road.
He added that there was no question over the legality of the shooting.

But the man was angry that sportsmen from other parts of the country and abroad were paying big money to come and shoot Exmoor's best stags as trophies.

"There are people who are prepared to spend quite ridiculous sums of money to have a trophy on their wall," said Mr Donnelly, from Dulverton, Somerset.

"People talk about £1,000 for a good head, but I've heard there are those who will pay a lot more."

He admitted older stags do need to be culled because they find it hard to survive after a certain age - but said the Emperor was not at that stage yet.

Death of the Exmoor Emperor
The great stag was only the latest victim of misguided regulations that have devastated Exmoor's economy, says Rory Knight Bruce.
By Rory Knight Bruce
Published: 7:06AM BST 27 Oct 2010
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ear...-Exmoor-Emperor.html

Who killed the "Emperor of Exmoor"? In the best tradition of that occasional West Country resident Agatha Christie, no body has yet been found. But the strong suspicion is that the stag – thought to be one of Britain's largest wild animals, at 300lb and almost 9ft tall – was shot by trophy hunters for his antlers, which could be valued at anything up to £10,000.

For those of us who live, work, farm or hunt on Exmoor, this is a sad day. The stag has long been held as emblematic of the area: it forms the symbol of the National Park, various beers and even the Dulverton laundry. At this time of year, in the rutting season, the low "groick" of their mating call – a noise not unlike a prep school master bellowing from the touchline – rings out across the coombs and dingles of the moor, to the delight of thousands of nature enthusiasts.

This latest incident has already promoted the usual condemnation of stalking, hunting and rural life in general. Peter Donnelly, a self-proclaimed deer management expert from Exmoor, has condemned the shooting, if that is what it was, as a disgrace. "If we care about deer," he says, "we should stop all persecution during this time of year."

Yet, while no one is delighting in the death of the Emperor, neither should we decry it. Stalking during the autumn is perfectly legal, in Exmoor as in Scotland, in order to keep the red deer population healthy and in check. "The fact is," says Graham Downing, editor of the journal of the British Deer Society, "a person on whose land the red deer has come has a right to kill it, even as a trophy. Clearly it is very sad when a particularly magnificent animal is killed, but it will die some way or another at some time."

Downing also says that the sporting thing would have been to choose a lesser or older stag, or a young fighter. But at the age of 12, the Emperor was nearing the end of his fertile days. Deer of that age are prone to TB, broken legs, lungworm or losing teeth, which make it difficult for them to graze. Culling their numbers is not just a kindness, but a necessity, both to keep the red deer population in check and to keep it healthy.

As Tim Bonner, political director of the Countryside Alliance, explains: "This stag was probably at a stage where he would be mating with his daughters and grand-daughters, which would significantly reduce the virility and health of the herd." Even in the League Against Cruel Sports' own deer sanctuary at Barons Down, marksmen have had to be called to dispatch sickly and inbred deer due to the absence of organised culling.

So, says Bonner: "If this stag has been culled for the right reasons and in the right way, there is nothing wrong with it. In fact, the government and conservation bodies all work together to make sure enough deer are culled to ensure they don't damage fragile habitats and environments."

In 1972, a survey of the red deer population on Exmoor concluded that it stood at between 500 and 800. Today that figure would be nearer to 3,000, an indication of the successful deer management programmes that have been in place. But with the population stabilised, the lack of natural predators means that the number of red deer on Exmoor would expand by about 30 per cent a year if they were left to their own devices, causing a massive amount of damage to forests. Bonner points out that the RSPB – not exactly a bloodthirsty body – have killed thousands of deer in Scotland to allow the regeneration of natural woodland.

Stalking deer is not just necessary, but makes a valuable contribution to Exmoor's precarious economy. In Scotland, there have been many cases of licensed council stalkers shooting deer, at considerable cost. If sportsmen are willing to pay large sums for the privilege, why not let private enterprise come into play?

Here, however, we run into the real problem – a ham-fisted regulatory regime that has seen licensed, humane stalking replaced by freelance operations, of the kind that may have taken the Emperor's life. The hunting ban of 2005 – which devastated Exmoor's economy – restricted its three staghound packs to hunting with only two hounds. For centuries previously, they had taken out full packs of hounds, selecting outlying and older deer which were then dispatched.

As the heroine of Lorna Doone says: "To outsiders, we are quite an odd place, and the hunting of stags is a local affair." Those who followed the hounds, as I can personally testify, were largely farmers who wanted to manage the deer population fairly and humanely. Yet the riders who visited to experience the feeling of flying across the majestic moors behind a pack of hounds in full cry provided an immeasurable boost to the rural economy by hiring horses, staying in pubs and using local shops and post offices.

These mounted followers used to number perhaps 200 on any given day. Since 2005, however, that trade has all but evaporated. Hotels on Exmoor have been turned into residences for bankers, with hunting enthusiasts heading instead to France. The Exmoor economy, as fragile as a wildlife habitat, now largely relies on big-bag pheasant and partridge shoots, in which visiting guns may barely know which country they are in, let alone which county. Stags have, in several instances, fallen victim to poaching or unregulated stalking, and the Emperor may be a case in point.

"This is what happens when hunting with hounds, and particularly the staghounds, has been persecuted by bad law," says Guy Thomas-Everard, a significant Exmoor landowner and vice chairman of the Devon and Somerset Staghounds. "With hunting, we have always believed we help in not too many deer being killed. [Without proper regulation] you are likely to get what has happened to this stag on a far larger scale. People quite literally start taking pot-shots."

If we are looking for a way to improve the situation, one option would be to copy the Continent – and in particular France, where all deer hunting and shooting in state-owned forests is licensed, bringing millions of pounds to the Exchequer. Once, sitting alongside the local mayor in a coracle on a lake, I was invited to use a sword to dispatch a red deer every bit as large as the Emperor, when the hounds had set him at bay. Was there an outcry? On the contrary – there were 300 cheering spectators, many recording the scene with video cameras.

If the Emperor of Exmoor – so named by Richard Austin, the photographer who first captured his likeness – has been taken and sold as a trophy, then Exmoor is a lesser place for it. But this can also be firmly attributed to the way in which the post-ban regulation has undermined the area and its economy. The results have benefited only trophy hunters, one of whom I recently met in Stockholm.

Over his life, he told me, he had attempted the "Big Five" in Africa – elephant, buffalo, lion, leopard and rhino – but had balked at the last of these. When I asked why, he said it would have cost him £40,000 – as a sportsman, he said, he had rejected the more wildlife-friendly option of having one stunned for an hour and having a prosthetic mask cast, for a reduced sum of £10,000. I hope he has not just added the Emperor to his collection instead.

It seems that some reports today indicate that this amazing stag, that was the biggest and greatest and so on, has been seen alive.

This highlights the importance of ignoring the emotional "dead baby" stories sold to the press by the green nutters who want to destroy society. If today's reports are true than NOT ONE SINGLE ELEMENT of their emotional story was true, including the statement that the stag was dead.

So, tell all your friends - these people spout utter rubbish at all times so just ignore them.

I'm a little confused about the point that Jabalihunter is making. I may personally have mixed emotions about folk who are out and out trophy hunters but folk should also remember that the people who pay top dollar for big trophies make a hefty contribution to the economy of managing the rest of the deer in that area - it's a loss leader when the hinds and smaller stags have to be culled

Caorach, I heard the same rumour confirmed today. I also heard that it was a possible stunt by rabid greens/looney left to sway public opinion and also that of the Home Affairs Committee on firearms legislation... Didn't think the lental eating dweebs were that clever though

quote:

Originally posted by Haggis:
Caorach, I heard the same rumour confirmed today. I also heard that it was a possible stunt by rabid greens/looney left to sway public opinion and also that of the Home Affairs Committee on firearms legislation... Didn't think the lental eating dweebs were that clever though

I also heard that the story may have been started by someone who's sympathies lie with the local staghounds...

It seems many in the stag hunting fraternity feel quite bitter towards stalkers and are quite happy to discredit us any way they can..

While in no way condoning friction between the field sports I do think it must be hard for the stag hunting part of the west country.

Stag hunting was a way of life for entire sections of community with long evolved habits, traditions and land use. With the banning of the sport (question seeing as it's shot at the end why didn't it continue like fox hunting?) it must be very hard to see that long established tradition completely altered. Bound to be some resentment - think how we would feel if stalking were banned and our hunting turned over to hordes of red jacketed, horse riding aristocracy and their hordes of mangy hounds

quote:

Originally posted by ochayethenoo:
I'm a little confused about the point that Jabalihunter is making.

My apologies - I was not making a point, just posting a couple of news articles (not written by me) for info. I should have made it clear.

There wouldn't be this much hue and cry if they shot the fattest person..... well I'm just sayin'

It seems to me that the REAL issue is whether or not it is in the hunter's best interest to shoot an animal IN it's prime. If hunters really practiced what they preach then they would not do so. Why are hunters constantly "circling the wagons" instead of pointing out this fact to "the wankers" who are not just the anti hunting fraternity, but also the "hunters" who don't seen to be clued into the game management part of hunting. Unless of course the game management part of hunting is just bullshit to impress the anti hunters!
Peter.

I thought this was quite a good piece


http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/v...oor-video?intcmp=239

Agree.
Clear and sober.
Told in a way that everybody can understand.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...ing-Exmoor-stag.html


Article with photos.

Once a poacher always a poacher.......except that this time Johnny's poaching limelight! ;o)

quote:

Originally posted by Trapper Dave:
Once a poacher always a poacher.......except that this time Johnny's poaching limelight! ;o)

Priceless! - and all too true

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...om-cashes-twist.html

More mystery to the story !

Johnny better watch out.

Hell hath no fury like a tabloid scorned...

Yes I notice they refer to him (Johnny Kingdom) as a wildlife expert but the word expert hasn't been bracketed by inverted commas

I remember on one of his episodes I saw he said that a stag can be aged by the number of tines it has and a 12 pointer will be older than an 10 etc

Yes spoken like a true "expert".... what a tit!

Jon, the more I look at this, the more I think it is a scam from front to back.

Either that, or Kingdom is pretty clever at jumping on a bandwagon.

quote:

Originally posted by Claret_Dabbler:
Jon, the more I look at this, the more I think it is a scam from front to back.

Either that, or Kingdom is pretty clever at jumping on a bandwagon.

I agree Brian, back at the begining of this story that Johnny Kingdom chap was on the TV etc. saying that he thought something had happened and it was likely the stag had been shot, he didn't profess any first hand knowledge. Now he is in the papers saying he nearly had to take cover to avoid being hit by the shots and that he saw the whole thing.

Interestingly I believe he has a new TV series starting this week.

Johnny's a "wildlife" "expert" and plays the media like he plays a Salmon ......on someone else's beat...........with a loop of wire round the tail

here's some more pictures of stags in England to show this stag was by no way exceptional
http://www.countrysports.co.uk...rophystagscenery.htm

BBC countryfile had a wander around the issue last night. In an effort to be fair, they gave everybody airtime including LACS and ended inconclusively gazing at some trees.

Mind you, Making Scotlands Landscape on BBC2 appeared to have been produced by the SNP or Scottish Labour Party. I've never before seen such a blantant piece of politicking masquerading as environmental science. Saddening.

Dave, interesting programme last night on Scotlands Landscape.

The clearances etc are something I know a little about, but not enough.

I thought the programme was badly skewed to blame the damage to the ecosystem on sporting estates. No doubt, things were done between let's say 1850 and 1950 which are very hard to defend today, the persecution of all sorts of predators chief among them.

However, what was briefly mentioned but quickly passed over, was that the real damage was done in the highlands by the Scottish and English aristocracy in the decades after Colloden. The highlands were stripped of it's timber, people, cattle and every thing else that made it a living place. All so the gentry could farm sheep. People today fail to recognise how important a cash crop wool was to the British economy for 600 - 700 years prior to 1950.

This is too difficult a subject for prime time TV, so this was ignored and the sporting estates were the focus, so much easier to explain to the urban thick with miniscule attention spans.