Right to shoot The Emperor say experts
The row over the killing of a magnificent stag escalated yesterday after the UK's leading shooting organisation said he may have become "too big and too old".
The Emperor was shot days after his photograph appeared in the Western Morning News celebrating his return to his stomping ground on Exmoor.
He is believed to have been legally killed by a hunter who paid the landowner for the shooting rights.
One Devon-based taxidermist said that if properly mounted The Emperor's antlers could be worth over £2,000.
Some experts have claimed it is "a disgrace" that the deer was shot during the rutting season, when he would have been passing on his genes.
But the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC), the country's largest shooting organisation, defended the killing as a "humane" part of the animal's population management.
WMN photographer Richard Austin, who first photographed the 9ft tall beast in 2009, said The Emperor's head and antlers are destined for the wall of a hotel or country home.
He said: "It makes me very angry. I am quite sure he was deliberately targeted, although his precise location was never mentioned.
"The size of his antlers cost him his life. I know that the red deer population has to be managed and they have to be shot but why take the biggest, the star of the show?"
There have been reports of wealthy European and American hunters visiting the area in increasing numbers because of the impressive size of the stags.
Mr Austin added: "You often see the hunters' planes at Exeter Airport where they have jetted in for a weekend's shooting. They have wiped out their own large animals and now they are coming for ours.
"The Emperor's head and antlers are almost certainly being prepared as a trophy to hang on the wall of some stately home." But the BASC said that if the deer population is not managed the resources of the land become overstretched and can no longer support them.
They also contested claims made about The Emperor's superior size.
BASC spokesman Simon Clarke said: "The Emperor was not Britain's largest wild animal as has been reported.
"The average weight of deer is 400lbs in England, and in some areas they can reach 600lbs plus. It is likely that he was earmarked as part of an overall deer management plan and shot during the rut because that is the time when stags are most likely to come out from deep cover.
"It may well be that he had simply become too big and too old for the area of land.
"Shooting is the only legal and humane way to control deer.
"We now have the highest ever deer population in the UK and it is essential that the population is managed.
"If a population is left unchecked then animals become prone to disease and starvation as the land becomes less able to support them."
George Witheridge, joint master of the Devon and Somerset Staghounds, said: "It may be a tragedy for people who wanted to see a magnificent stag but it is not necessarily a tragedy for the deer population.
"He would already have passed on his genes in previous seasons and there is the danger of inbreeding because he could be mating with his own granddaughters."
Deerstalking near Hartland with Nick Wellington and Paul Messenger. Film by Adam Wilshaw.
Nervous deer at Derriford Business Park.
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