Zuid Holland province is going ahead with the cull of an entire herd of fallow deer in the Hoeksche Waard near Rotterdam because the animals are causing damage to crops, the NRC reported.

Animal rights organisations Animal Rights and Fauna4Life have now announced legal action in an attempt to prevent a cull which has set the local council and the province at loggerheads for the last four years.

The herd, grown to around 100 following the escape of three deer from a park in 2000, is presenting a danger to traffic and is feeding on sugar beet, grain and other crops.

“If nothing is done the herd will double in size every three years,” provincial deputy Berend Potjer (GL-PvdA) told the paper. “We want to prevent a situation similar to the dunes near Amsterdam where deer grazed the area bare and ended up invading people’s gardens,” he said.

A limited cull, suggested by local action group Team Damherten Hoeksche Waard, is not an option, Potjer said, because it would mean a bigger cull in the long term and a shrinking gene pool.

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Local council official Huibert Steen said the damage to crops is “regrettable”, particularly since farmers are not compensated for the damage because the fallow deer are not classed as wild, unlike the local red deer.

Nevertheless, accidents involving the animals are few and far between, he said, as there is little traffic in the area.