Ober heath hide

This shooters hide, camouflaged amongst a few young trees, is the largest I've come across in the forest. They're usually one person affairs, although this one could easily accommodate 2 or 3 shooters, and makes a perfect rest spot with excellent views (you have to ignore the 'no public' sign, but that's not hard). People have asked 'why are the forest deer shot?'.  Well, it because nothing is as natural as it looks, the forest landscapes you see have been created over millennia of human exploitation and manipulation. Or to put it bluntly...it's not natural. Heathland, was created when agriculture was adopted (in some places it would have been an existing niche environment, subsequently expanded) and the wild wood cleared, the soils productivity failed quickly and more wild wood was cleared. Heath once spread over huge areas of Britain, although now it's becoming an increasingly rare and protected environment. If it's not managed nature would once again assert herself, improving the impoverished soils, reinstating woodland, and heathland would disappear or return to niche pockets. Controlling the deer population is part of that management, as another aspect of our historical interfering was the disruption of natural equilibrium through the extermination of species. Once wolves, along with hunting, would have managed deer populations, now they need to be regularly culled.  The New Forest authority are performing a balancing act, they need conditions just so. They need natures attempts at reforestation curbed, although not to the extent of no new reforestation. Nature once had it sorted.  But we had to stick our oar in, we really are a disruptive and destructive species.