The Mayor of Radstock Rupert Bevan writes:

Personally I blame Disney. The custom of anthropomorphising animals of all types and sizes has conferred upon them a romantic status that has released their carers from the imperatives of stewardship and reality. Moreover the prospect of sending animals to their death for food has become abhorrent to many. 

Chickens, pigs, lambs and steers represent the vast majority of meat that hits our supermarket shelves. However pigeons also are good to eat, but squirrels less so. Where are the rabbits and deer? An ill-judged introduction of myxomatosis put paid to the former, once the preserve of the impecunious country dweller and if you see the latter, it is because it is usually lying by the roadside, left for dead by a care- free motorist.

Ecologists will tell you that if you see wild deer wandering in the road it is because their normal habitat or niche has been occupied another of its species, basically too many animals for the land to cope with, so the displaced creatures go in search of less salubrious surroundings. If you look carefully at the hornbeams in the Miners' Garden, you will see trunks previously stripped bare of bark- sure signs of grazing deer. Moreover there have occurred, in recent years a number of fatal - or near fatal – accidents involving bikers and car drivers who have swerved off the road rather than hit one of these creatures.

With a bit of pragmatic stewardship, the numbers of deer could be kept in check and slaughtered animals sold for meat. That way, Bambi would be assured of a decent life and not end up disfigured under the wheels of a Chelsea tractor!