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John O’Connor is a dairy farmer and rents a farm in Tomies, by the lake and on the bounds of the Killarney National Park.
His land is dry enough for his cows to go out soon, but John must wait for a big flush of grass in April because the deer eat whatever grass is there now. A neighbour’s sheep are currently grazing the farm.
“They might as well get it as the deer, who would leave nothing behind them,” he says.
His fence of strong stakes and high-tensile electric fence are torn down and strewn around the fields.
It’s clear that it was deer, and not sheep, who pulled the fences down. It will take John a couple of days to make the place stock-proof.
Worse still, the constant danger is that the deer will take down his fence and his stock will escape to the busy tourist roads around him.
“If my stock are on the road and cause an accident, I’m responsible, but if deer cause an accident, nobody is responsible.”
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