by Suzanne Kelly

THE TULLOS HILL DEER STORY

TULLOS HILL, ABERDEEN.  For over 70 years roe deer lived on the scrub and meadow on top of Tullos Hill, a former rubbish tip with very little soil.   Then someone decided that they would plant a 'Tree for Every Citizen'.  They didn't say anything about killing the deer when the public consultation was live.  So the deer were slaughtered. No trees are likely to thrive - the government said as much. Here are some of the details.  Stop press:  it is with pleasure that one of the scheme's proponents was let go by the City.  This was Peter Leonard.  He called the deer 'vermin' (incorrect on many counts).  When he mismanaged the crematorium, he made a remark about the cremation of infants that helped secure his overdue demise.

Update 24 August - following Aberdeen City's Petitions Committee agreeing costs for the Tree For Every Citizen Scheme should be disclosed, seventeen weeks elapsed with no figures forthcoming.  What finally appeared did not even have all the costs previously disclosed.  An article in Aberdeen Voice published 25 August will detail some of what is missing and what is wrong with the entire picture.  Here are the recently released figures (above right); compare them with the spreadsheet from 2011 (above left).  The new figures leave  out the £43,800 the city was fined for the previous failure, and some £30,000 in herbicide costs - that's just for openers.

Update April 2015:  A petition asking Aberdeen City Council important questions about Tullos and the deer cull had sufficient signatures (over 432, counting those outside the city/those who weren't on the electoral register) to be accepted.  On 21 April Suzanne Kelly goes before the Petitions Committee to ask for a halt to deer culling (there may only be 19 left in the city), to ask for detailed accounts of how much the tree planting and deer cull has cost, and to ask for a 'comfort letter' from Scottish Natural Heritage - to stop them getting more money from the taxpayer should this current tree planting fail to take.  Why would it fail?  See photos below, taken in March 2015.  If as the SNH claimed both deer browsing and weeds stopped the last planting from happening, perhaps the city should do some weeding?

Below is the presentation made to Aberdeen's Petitions Committee; an article on www.aberdeenvoice.com gives details of what the outcomes were.

NEWSFLASH:  Aberdeen City's Chief Executive Valerie Watts stood down on 25 March 2014.  She was a staunch defender of the deer cull, despite being caught in a few little misunderstandings as outlined in the deer report below.  The file above is one of her letters on the subject; an article will soon appear on her departure and tenure at www.aberdeenvoice.com

TULLOS HILL LATEST - http://aberdeenvoice.com/2014/03/staggering-tullos-hill-deer-count-3-animals/