For many months, Protect the Wild has been following the grassroots campaign to stop the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust (DWCT) from allowing pay-to-shoot deer stalking at the estate it manages in the Cairngorms.
After initially doubling down on its support for trophy hunting, the Trust subsequently bowed to pressure from its supporters and pledged to end paid deer hunting by 2026. Now, as Trust members gear up to challenge the policy at DWCT’s AGM, Durrell has announced that it will not be taking bookings for deer stalking parties after November 2025.
Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust is a well-known Jersey-based conservation charity founded by the popular late British author and naturalist Gerald Durrell. It has been involved in a rewilding project at Scotland’s Dalnacardoch Estate since 2023. The Trust attracted controversy last year after former-Durrell director Paul Masterton told the BBC that DWCT’s support for “trophy hunting and blood sport” at Dalnacardoch – where “people pay a licence fee where they stalk and kill animals” – was a sign that the Trust had travelled “far from its roots and its values”.
Bowing to grassroots pressure
Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust has tried to paint its move away from pay-to-shoot stalking as part of a consistent policy of gradually ending trophy hunting at Dalnacardoch. That just doesn’t ring true. Protect the Wild has been shown historical communications between the Trust and its supporters where Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust Chairman Matthew Hatchwell – who resigned earlier this year – was defending an “ethical stalking policy” as part of DWCT’s “deer Management Plan”. It’s clear that the Trust had originally planned to carry on with pay-to-shoot tourism at the Estate on a much longer-term basis.
Hatchwell had made himself very unpopular with many Trust supporters when he suggested to critics of the charity’s board of directors at the Trust’s 2023 AGM that “If any members feel they cannot support our leadership as we enter this new period in Durrell’s history, we encourage them to reflect on whether a Durrell membership is right for them.”
It seems to us that the Trust has bowed once again to grassroots pressure and made moves to stop deer stalking on its estate BUT it hasn’t cancelled its existing pay-to-shoot bookings.
A Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust press spokesperson told Protect the Wild:
“We have confirmed that this will be our last season of paid stalking. While the season technically runs until Spring 2026 our last booking is at the end of October 2025. From November 2025, we will manage deer exclusively via our own team.”
Protect the Wild’s Rob Pownall commented that DWCT’s change of heart was due to public pressure:
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Trust supporters maintain that pay-to-shoot must stop “immediately”
Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust members are tabling a resolution at DWCT’s September AGM calling on the Trust to stop paid deer stalking. The resolution, signed by ten Trust members, calls for:
“all Commercial Shooting for Pay, Blood Sports and Trophy Hunting, be stopped with immediate effect, on all Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust owned or managed properties, including pay to kill hunting at the Scottish estate known as Dalnacardoch.”
Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust member Peter Brookes told Protect the Wild:
“I believe that for something as distasteful as having paid bloodsport on a Durrell managed property, the members should have a right to decide on whether the activity continues or is stopped. To this end, we have put forward a resolution to the board, that all members be given the opportunity to vote to cease all blood sport including the shooting of deer for money. The board will no doubt continue, professional culling, but this resolution is specifically asking members to vote to stop “pay to shoot blood sport” immediately, not in 2026 or November this year, but immediately.”
The deer killed by blood sports enthusiasts at Dalnacardoch are likely to suffer terrifying and painful deaths. Back in March, one anonymous opponent of deer stalking at Dalnacardoch told Protect the Wild that “amateurs are well known to inflict awful wounds and suffering on deer which then die slowly.” He went on to state that “an organisation like Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust should not be continuing with deer stalking on its land.”
So why aren’t DWCT just cancelling their pay-to-shoot bookings right away instead of stalling until November? As is so often the case, the answer is likely to be about money. Scotland is a popular destination for rich tourists from around the world who typically pay hundreds of pounds for each deer they kill. But should a conservation charity like DWCT be profiting from tourists inflicting suffering? We don’t think so.
Protect the Wild supports Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust’s members in calling for an end to trophy hunting, not in November but immediately. It is sickening that this well-respected conservation charity is still allowing this to happen on an estate they manage. It needs to end now!
- Read more about Deer and the Law on our Protectors of the Wild page here.
- Read our original article calling out Durrell Trust’s shameful support for deer stalking
- Durrell Trust are uniquely placed to advocate the reintroduction of predators at Dalnacardoch as an alternative to the cull which is being required by the Scottish government to manage deer numbers. Read more here.
River Garry at Dalnacardoch image via Anne Burgess (Wikimedia Commons), pictures of deer via Max Selling and Jay Alexander on Unsplash