Why should you participate DMQ1?

A lot of Danish, Belgium, German and Dutch hunters travel every year to enjoy active stalking in the UK. Many land owners will only allow holders of either DSC 1 or DSC 1 & 2 to hunt on their land and, therefore, the DMQ DSC1 assessment in The Netherlands will enable candidates to expand their UK hunting possibilities as well as their deer and stalking knowledge.

Deer Management Qualification

In The Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and Germany, a country hunting assessment is required to go hunting. Similarly, in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, passing the relevant assessment is also voluntary. Nevertheless many land owners will only allow holders of either DMQ1 or DMQ1 & 2 to hunt alone on their land. This gives everybody from the continent who likes to hunt with a stalker or alone in England and Scotland a valid reason to get interested in participating in this deer management assessment 1 and 2.

Dutchman Adrian van Well has a good understanding of DMQ:

“In 1987 we managed to acquire a deer forest property in the Scottish Highlands. All the deer are managed within a ‘deer management group’. This group carries out a yearly count, a five-year helicopter count and discussions on relevant items for instance fences, vegetation, venison and our cull programs. Near to the estate we have two well-managed forests of The Forestry Commission (FC). Over the years we have excellent contacts with the FC and discussed with them the possibility in leasing their surrounding grounds and forestry. This lease could be possible, only when we had passed the Deer Management Qualifications Deer Stalkers Certificate stage 1 and Deer Stalkers Certificate stage 2 (DMQ DSC 1 and DSC 2 or simply DMQ 1 and DMQ 2)

After research we found it was possible to do the assessments in Scotland or England. In this case I had to come over for several training days during the year and two assessment days. This was problematic with my workload, so I contacted the BASC. Together with the BASC we managed to organise the first DMQ1 assessment in The Netherlands.

Nick Lane the Senior Training and Development Officer and head of BASC Deer Assessment Centre specially came over to The Netherlands and tested all the applicants. In The Netherlands several DMQ1 groups have now passed this assessment successfully over the past five years, with a lot of Dutch hunters gaining the DMQ1 qualification and several going on to achieve DMQ2.