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CHAPTER THREE SUMMARY OF THE RESPONSES. SUMMARY OF THE RESPONSES;

3.1 The consultation generated 91 responses from a range of interests including land managers, stalkers, public agencies, non-governmental organisations, etc. One response came in duplicate form and was therefore omitted from the analysis so as to avoid double-counting, and one response followed other verbal and written communication and was also discounted from the analysis for the same reason. One late submission could not be included in the statistical analysis. The total number of valid responses was therefore 88. 50 responses (60 percent) came from organisations, while 35 responses (40 percent) came from individuals. One response represented both an individual and an organisation. 49 respondents (56 percent) made use of the Consultation Questionnaire Form, while the rest submitted letters as their response. In fact, a common complaint raised by several stakeholders and other respondents was that the questionnaire was somewhat hard to fill. Therefore, the analysis presented here has taken full account of the views expressed in free text letters.

3.2 Respondents were asked to identify as many interests in wild deer as they saw appropriate. They were given a choice of 10 options (see the following table for the list of interests). 53 respondents identified themselves with only one interest. However, 29 respondents identified more than one interest in wild deer. This probably reflects the cross-cutting nature of interest in wild deer, incorporating, for instance, interest in the economic as well as wildlife and ecological aspects of deer management.

3.3 The responses were broken down to identify the frequency and percentage proportion attributed to each interest. 'Land manager' was the most frequently identified interest in wild deer, followed by non-governmental organisations, interested individuals, employed stalker and recreational stalker. The identification of interest in wild deer is summarised in the following table:

3.4 The following illustration shows the proportion of different interests identified by the responses. There was no one dominant interest, although 'land manager' occupies the largest grouping of any one interest (with just under a quarter of the respondents):

3.5 The identification of interest in wild deer among those who identified only ONE interest is summarised in the table below:

3.6 The following illustration provides a picture of the distribution of the number of interests among the responses. It shows that nine respondents have identified two interests in wild deer, and the same number of respondents identified three sets of interests. Eleven respondents have identified four or more interests in deer: One respondent did not identify any interest.

3.7 It is interesting to note that the representation of non-governmental organisations among those who have identified only one interest is significantly higher compared with those respondents who have identified one or more interest (30 percent in the former group compared to 14 percent in the latter). In addition, most public agencies tended to identify themselves as such, without choosing a further interest. Another interesting aspect of this issue is that all of those who have identified themselves as recreational stalkers or food producers have listed at least one more interest in wild deer.

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