British Deer Society AGM & Conference Weekend 2018 - 18th / 19th May 2018
BDS AGM Seminars - A great success!
The BDS conference seminars held over the 2 days in Edinburgh were voted a great success by those attending. The meeting drew a broad cross section of attendees from the deer industry, academia, statutory bodies and NGOs as well as BDS members.
Speakers covered a broad range of topics and if you were not able to attend some of the sessions that were live-streamed can be viewed below. You can also view a video of David Wright from Fieldsports TV who interviewed the outgoing and incoming chairs Profs Michael Thick and Rory Putman and event organiser John Bruce.
Seminar videos
1. Professor Rory Putman - Chair BDS - "Assessing Chronic Stress in Deer through Infra-red Thermography".
2. Dr Jed Long - "Outdoor Recreation and Red Deer".
3. Dr Mark Dalgleish - "Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in Deer, Elk and Moose".
4. Professor Richard Birtles - "Ticks and Lyme Disease".
5. Dr Tom McNeilly - "Risk of E.colis 0157 Contamination in Wild Venison".
6. David Wright from Fieldsports TV interviewing the outgoing and incoming BDS chairs Professors Michael Thick and Rory Putman and event organiser John Bruce.
More information and photos can be found on the BDS Facebook page.
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Scottish Trustee Director and Area Chair John Bruce welcomed delegates, members and Society friends to Edinburgh.
Friday 18th May was a full day conference with speakers on deer related topics of national importance including some of particular Scottish relevance. The conference took place in the Budongo Lecture Theatre at Edinburgh Zoo which was conveniently placed adjacent to the hotel. The Royal Zoological Society Scotland Edinburgh Zoo is set in over 82 acres of sloping parkland and home to over 1,000 rare and endangered animals, including Giant Pandas, and was well worth a visit.
Saturday’s conference was at the Holiday Inn itself and majored on talks by BDS sponsored researchers, ending with the AGM meeting late afternoon and finally the AGM dinner in the evening. Visitors could then decide whether to travel home on Sunday or spend more time exploring Scotland’s exciting capital city and the multitude of interesting places to visit.
Agenda
Friday 18th May - Edinburgh University
| 09:00 | Registration, Edinburgh Zoo |
| 09:45 | Welcome Michael Thick, BDS Chairman |
| 10:00 | Genetics of deer - Hybridisation and introgression between red deer and Japanese sika Prof. J.M. Pemberton, Institute of Evolutionary Biology |
| 10:30 | Biodiversity and ungulate management in managed forests Claudia Jordan-Fragstein, Projektbüro BioWild |
| 11.00 | - Break - |
| 11:30 | Habitat Impact Assessment - Assessing herbivore impacts on woodlands: an observational approach Dr Helen Armstrong |
| 12:00 | Scotland’s Wild Deer: A National Approach – what is the role of BDS? Jessica Findlay, SNH |
| 12:30 | Wild Deer Best Practice - where it is and what is does Alastair MacGugan, SNH |
| 13:00 | - Lunch and zoo visit. Free tickets to see the Pandas available - |
| 15:00 | Landscape development - Impacts of scale & diversity of land ownership in Scotland Stephen Thomson, SRUC |
| 15:30 | Landscape development - The role of red deer in shaping the upland Scottish landscape Dr James Fenton |
| 16:00 | Landscape development - National trends & regional differences in red deer density in Scotland Donald Fraser, Operations Manager, SNH |
| 16:30 | - Close - |
Saturday 19th May 2018 - Holiday Inn Hotel
| 09:00 | Registration Holiday Inn Hotel |
| 09:30 | Research - Roe deer genomics - Insights into the demographic history of roe deer populations Menno de Jong, PhD candidate, Whitehead Trust |
| 10:00 | Research - A citizen science approach for studying impacts of outdoor recreation on red deer Dr Jed Long, St Andrews University |
| 10:30 | Research - Disturbance of red deer on Ulva Hagen O’Neill, Durham University |
| 11:00 | - Break - |
| 11:30 | Ticks & Borreliosis - Ticks on South Downs Jo Middleton, BSMS |
| 12:00 | An overview of the ecology of Lyme disease in the UK Prof Richard J Birtles, School of Environment & Life Sciences |
| 12:30 |
Rationale and implementation of a UK-wide tick-borne virus deer serosurveillance study Maya Holding, NIHR, University of Liverpool |
| 13:00 | - Lunch - |
| 14:00 | Deer Health - Chronic Wasting Disease, explained in worldwide scenario Dr. Mark Dagleish |
| 14:30 | Deer Health - Modelling the susceptibility of British deer to Chronic Wasting Disease Dr. Fiona Houston & Amy Robinson, Roslin Institute, Edinburgh |
| 15:00 | Deer Health - E Coli0157:H7 - prevalence and risks Dr Tom McNeilly, Moredun Institute |
| 15:30 |
Infra-red thermography: development of a field method to assess chronic stress in free-ranging deer Prof Rory Putman |
| 16.00 | - Break - |
| 16:30 | BDS AGM |
| 19:30 | Aperitifs – Reception Holiday Inn Hotel |
| 20:00 | Society Dinner – Dining Room, Holiday Inn Hotel |
