At Holnicote Estate in Exmoor National Park, woodland recovery is being handled as a long-term management job rather than a single intervention. The National Trust site covers 5,059 hectares in West Somerset, much of it open under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, with 150 miles of footpaths and bridleways running through moorland, coast and woodland. That mix matters. Holnicote includes Horner Wood National Nature Reserve, a Site of Special Scientific Interest with 351.8 hectares of ancient oak woodland, so decisions about browsing, bark stripping and public access all land in the same place.

The government case study describes grey squirrels as the most immediate threat to woodland habitat across the estate. They strip bark from young and mature trees, often high in the canopy, and in the worst cases can remove 60 to 70 per cent of it. That weakens stems and leaves trees more exposed to wind damage. What makes Holnicote more interesting is that the obvious response is no longer straightforward. Pine martens have been recorded on the estate, and once that happened, lethal traps for grey squirrels were ruled out to avoid harming a protected native predator that may also help keep squirrel numbers down.

Live trapping, in theory, remains an option. In practice, the case study says it is too labour-intensive for an estate of this scale. A meaningful operation would need trapping lines of 40 to 50 traps, checked three or four times a day for a month before managers would expect much effect. Instead, Holnicote is working with neighbouring landowners across Exmoor National Park to build a trained volunteer group using low-powered air rifles. One volunteer operating at fixed bait stations removed about 150 grey squirrels between October 2024 and June 2025 from an area that had been suffering heavy damage.

Because the woods are open to the public, safety has shaped the method as much as ecology. The case study says each bait station is positioned only after a risk assessment, with operators set well back from public routes and steep valley sides used as a backstop. In that controlled set-up, the 16.27-joule air rifle in use is treated as low risk. Alongside this, the estate is monitoring pine martens and Eurasian goshawks, both of which prey on grey squirrels. At the time of the case study, plans were also under way to release another 10 pine martens into Exmoor National Park, adding more support for natural predation.

Deer management follows the same pragmatic logic. Fencing was considered for new woodland at Riverlands Wood in Porlock Vale, but the estate decided it would mostly shift browsing pressure elsewhere while creating a new bill for repairs and eventual removal. Managers also calculated that fencing the 17-hectare site would cost about the same as employing a full-time wildlife manager for a year, equipment included. So Holnicote chose a more flexible route backed by government grants: targeted deer and squirrel control, plus deliberate overplanting of some tree species to reduce reliance on guards and fences. It is not the neatest option on paper, but it gives managers room to adapt as conditions change.

The case study draws an important distinction between species. Red deer are part of Exmoor’s visitor economy, but it is roe deer that are causing the sharper problem for young trees and coppice regrowth, especially in areas where Eurasian beavers are active. In Riverlands Wood, the estate has turned to Trico®, a deer repellent made from emulsified sheep fat, applied by hand twice a year in early spring and autumn. Early results are encouraging. Browsing damage from roe deer fell to below 20 per cent within the first year of spraying, although the National Trust notes that heavy initial planting may also be helping absorb some losses. Rather than guess, the estate plans to test the balance using Forest Research’s nearest neighbour method for new planting.

Habitat design is doing part of the work as well. Glades and rides with highly palatable plants are being maintained along woodland edges to give deer somewhere else to feed. These openings were once a small share of the woodland plan; now they are being built in from the start, with deer management as the main driver and biodiversity gains following alongside it. Selective culling remains part of the picture, with deer numbers being held at what the estate describes as a healthy, sustainable level of around 8 deer per square kilometre. Restoring woodland on busy public land is rarely neat. At Holnicote, the answer is a joined-up mix of tree choice, habitat design, deterrence, predator recovery and targeted culling, backed by monitoring that can show what is and is not working.