Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many deer have been culled under night licences issued in the last three years.

Each licence that Natural England Wildlife Licensing Service (NEWLS) issues comes with the condition that the licensee must provide a report of all action taken under that licence within 14 days of that licence ending.

Natural England have received 81% of all reports covering the deer licences to shoot at night which were active between 1^st January 2021 and 31^st December 2023.

These reports show that a total of 9,684 deer were shot at night under licence, of which:

• 608 are Red Deer
• 127 are Roe Deer
• 568 are Sika Deer
• 455 are Muntjac Deer
• 7,926 are Fallow Deer

Please note, due to the format we received some of these reports of action from customers, the above figures may contain some deer shot before 1^st January 2021.