A group concerned with the welfare of animals in Kent says a park's decision to shoot a deer in Sevenoaks was 'outrageous'.

Animal Rights in Kent made the comment after a deer was shot dead in Knole Park last Friday.

The herd and 90% of the parkland is owned and managed by the Sackville family’s Knole Estate. The National Trust, which manages a small part of it, confirmed the actions of the owners were necessary for the health and safety of its visitors after the animal became "too aggressive" and posed a "threat to other visitors".

But the animal rights group feels the deer should not have been killed because of human error.

Its spokesman said: "We believe it was completely wrong to shoot the deer. If people go up to wild animals and ignore the signs, it's not the fault of the deer if the people get hurt.

"It's outrageous! People should observe the deer from a distance. People need to understand how wild animals behave."

Several signs are placed around the Knole Estate including on the entrance gates asking people not to feed the deer as this can cause them to become too tame and behave unpredictably.

But a family who were at the park at the time feel the warnings need to be made more clear after their experience gave them a "huge shock".

Vicky Chaney from Stockbury visited with her husband and two of her children for a picnic when she heard the gunshot in the woods.

Sharing her experience on Facebook Mrs Chaney said she wrongly assumed the signs meant people should not not feed the animals unsuitable foods like chocolate.

Being open and honest with the hope of stopping other families making the same mistake, the 40-year-old mother-of-three said: "We were fully aware of the signs telling us not to feed the animals but being animal friendly, we wrongly assumed this just meant that people shouldn't feed them unsuitable things like chocolate or doughnuts.

"We sat having our picnic with a bag of carrots just in case one came over and so we weren't tempted to give it something it wasn’t meant to eat. One did come over so out came the carrots.

"A lady who worked there then came over and the deer was soon chased off. She said they were trying to catch it as it was hurting people.

"Five minutes later the deer keeper came along in his truck and was marching about with a stick. My 12-year-old daughter asked him if he was looking for the deer and he informed us that he was looking for it to shoot it. We asked why and he said because when they become too tame by being constantly fed by the public, they then become a nuisance and hazard and have to be culled.

"We obviously felt terrible and he walked off into the wooded area and five minutes later there was a gunshot."

Mrs Chaney's post has since been shared more than 2,300 times on the social media platform.

She added: "I wanted to share the post not to bring negative publicity to Knole Park but to help make people realise that when there are signs saying 'Do not feed', it really means it.

"It was a huge shock for us and I feel like the signs need to say something that gives the honest reason behind the rules so people don't make the same mistake we did. They should tell people that the animals may need to be shot for safety reasons if fed because that is a much stronger message and makes it more clear.

"If we had known it wasn't just about diet, we never would have done it."

In a statement, The National Trust said: "We can confirm that an incident with a deer was escalated to the Knole Estate deer keeper last Friday (July 3). A deer had injured a visitor, was displaying overly aggressive behaviour and posing an immediate threat to other visitors. The decision was therefore taken by the deer keeper to put the animal down. The area was cleared and this was carried out safely and discreetly.

"The deer’s behaviour was unfortunately as a result of people feeding and petting the deer against the advice of the National Trust and the Knole Estate. We take animal welfare very seriously and have been actively engaging with visitors on social media and onsite, with both Knole Estate and National Trust staff regularly patrolling the park in efforts to educate visitors.

"We have signage up around the park about not feeding the deer, including entrance gates, and information about the wild deer herd on our web pages. We continue in our work to do all we can to protect these remarkable wild animals."

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