How to age and measure Chinese Water Deer

Deer manager Paul Childerley shoots a lot of Chinese water deer on his ground in Bedfordshire every year, plus he has stalking clients he takes shooting, too. He is an expert on what makes a good CWD trophy - and he explains it all here.
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Why shoot deer?
There are more than two million red, roe, fallow, sika, muntjac and Chinese water deer in Britain’s countryside and semi-urban areas, the highest level for 1,000 years. Numbers have doubled since 1999, according to the Deer Initiative, the UK government’s deer agency.
Deer are an attractive and an important part of our wildlife. However, they have no natural predator in the UK so numbers must be sensibly and strategically managed to keep them in balance with their habitat and to prevent damage to crops, trees, woodland flora, gardens and other wildlife.
Deer cause £4.5 million-worth (Forestry Commission Scotland) of damage to plantations and other commercial woodlands in Scotland. Crop damage is estimated at £4.3m a year according to DEFRA, with the greatest damage on cereal crops in east and south-west England.
More than 8,000 hectares (Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology) of woodland with SSI status is currently in ‘unfavourable’ or ‘recovering’ condition due to deer impacts such as browsing and fraying. Deer can also influence the variety of wildlife in woodlands and other habitats by altering structural and plant species diversity. According to the University of East Anglia’s Dr Paul Dolman, that has resulted in a 50% decline in woodland bird numbers where deer are present, impacting particularly on nightingales, blackcaps, chiffchaffs and warblers.
Deer are susceptible to Bovine TB and may be responsible for the transmission of TB to cattle. They are also the likely driver behind the UK’s increasing tick population (Scharlemann et al 2008).
Happily, venison is a delicious meat. It is wild, natural and free range, and - almost fat-free - it is one of the healthiest meats available today. Results from research commissioned by the Game-to-Eat campaign (Leatherhead Food International Research 2006) suggest that there are real health benefits to eating game. Venison is high in protein, low in saturated fatty acids and contains higher levels of iron than any other red meat.
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[@whysoserious5854]

Are these in Cambridgeshire I live in peterborough n all we have really are muntjack around the city

[@fieldsportstv]

Yes there are CWD in Cambridgeshire. / Charlie

[@whysoserious5854]

@@fieldsportstv thanks

[@nod1able]

Loads about in Cambs and muntjac and loads of roe

[@alvkrokensjakt1009]

How does it work on muntjaac?

[@phillkirby]

They're massive fangs,didnt know they had them what is their purpose thanks

[@indyreno2933]

Despite their name, water deer are not deer at all, they are the only extant genus of the family Hydropotidae, there are two extant species of water deer, the Chinese Water Deer (Hydropotes inermis) and the Korean Water Deer (Hydropotes argyropus), the closest living relatives of the water deer are the musk deer (genus Moschus), which are the only extant genus of another family known as Moschidae, both Moschidae (Musk Deer and Fossil Relatives) and Hydropotidae (Water Deer and Fossil Relatives) are the only two extant families of the broader superfamily Moschoidea, which is the only extant superfamily of the infraorder Ceratodonta, which is part of the suborder Neoselenodontia (Herbivorous Even-Toed Hoofed Mammals), being only more derived than Tragulina (Chevrotains and Fossil Relatives) but is basal to the rest of Neoselenodontia, with the pecorans (infraorder Pecora) being more closely related to the tylopods (infraorder Tylopoda) than they are to the chevrotains and moschoids.

[@robertwhite8238]

I don’t see why shooting a lovely animal like gives you pleasure. It’s not a sport - just cruel and barbaric.