THE Deer Commission for

Scotland has embarked upon a campaign to impose strict controls on the country's sika deer population. The deer are said to be costing the forestry industry up to #1m a year in damage to trees.

There are also fears that the sika, introduced in 1860 as a decorative species in deer parks, could begin to pose a threat to the native red deer population with which it is inter-breeding.

Commission chairman Patrick Gordon-Duff Pennington said the threat of hybridisation was sufficiently serious for the commission to consider drawing up plans for island refuges for the pure red deer population. No deer would be imported into these refuges without DNA testing.

The sika are prolific breeders and there are fears that unless controls are introduced, the red deer could suffer the same fate as the red squirrel, which has been largely displaced by its grey cousin. Professor Michael Usher of Scottish Natural

Heritage admitted, however, that such displacement could happen over a timescale of up to two centuries.

Speaking at a news conference in Edinburgh, the commission chairman said damage to forests by sika deer could halve the value of a plantation.

Bark stripping allowed the spread of infection which, in turn, weakened the trees and made them more susceptible to wind damage.

The sika deer population has increased rapidly over the last 15 years and is now estimated at more than 20,000.

''An effective management and control policy is essential

if we are to avoid increasing problems in the future,'' said

Gordon-Duff Pennington. The document published by the deer commission calls for forest owners to exercise rigorous control of sika deer and for a major effort to remove the species from the open hill which is the natural habitat of red deer.

Control would be principally by shooting, monitored by local deer management groups, who would formulate a cull policy.