This article explores how WildTrackPro, in partnership with the Shooting and Hunting Academy, is transforming woodland management through a new online course that equips professionals to collect, interpret, and act on mammal impact data with precision and consistency.
Across the UK’s woodlands, a quiet transformation is underway. Bark stripped from saplings, seedlings vanished from the understorey, regeneration halted in its tracks. These are the subtle, often misread, signs of mammal activity. Mostly deer, sometimes squirrels, occasionally something else entirely.
But here's the truth: seeing damage isn't enough. Understanding it, quantifying it, and recording it in a way that can drive management decisions. That’s where the real work begins.
This is precisely why WildTrackPro exists. To give land managers, ecologists and deer professionals a way to capture mammal damage data in the field, visualise it across a landscape, and act on it with confidence.
And to support this, we’ve partnered with the Shooting and Hunting Academy to release a new online course: Woodland Mammal Damage and Impact Assessment. Not as an end in itself, but as a practical training tool that teaches people how to use their eyes, interpret what they see, and input the right data into WildTrackPro.
Who Are WildTrackPro?
WildTrackPro is a collective of ecologists, deer managers and software developers working at the intersection of wildlife management and technology. We specialise in providing practical digital tools for field professionals involved in wildlife management, habitat restoration, and ecological monitoring.
At the core of our work is a mission to improve the quality of decision making on the ground. That means giving professionals the means to record, track and interpret ecological impacts at scale. Whether it’s quantifying deer browsing, mapping regeneration success, or tracking population trends across estates, WildTrackPro helps turn observations into actionable strategy.
Our software is used by private estates, NGOs, conservation projects, rewilding and natural capital projects across the UK. It is trusted for its reliability in the field, its ease of use, and its ability to bring clarity to complex management decisions.
Why Damage Assessment Data is the Backbone of Modern Deer Management
In professional deer management, decisions need to be based on evidence not instinct. Whether you’re justifying cull levels, applying for grants, defending woodland schemes, or aligning with ELM or Nature Recovery targets, you need to show:
- Where the damage is happening
- What species are responsible
- How severe and widespread the impact is
- Whether the pressure is increasing or being brought under control
That’s exactly what the WildTrackPro platform enables.
Using simple mobile tools and mapping integrations, users can log:
- Browsing intensity
- Species specific damage
- Photographic records
- GPS tagged observations
- Habitat quality metrics over time
With this data layered across maps and across time, managers can see change happening and respond in a way that’s rooted in ecological reality, not guesswork.
The Course: A Bridge to Better Data
We’ve found that while many professionals know how to identify mammal damage; quantification and consistency across regions, sites and even the same woodlands can be lacking. The new online course provides that missing link. WildTrackPro have carried out impact assessments from Scotland to the South Downs, by using standardised methods (and using our app for consistency) impact assessments in Lincolnshire, Kent, Cornwall and Northumberland can be compared side by side.
Participants are taught how to:
- Identify deer vs squirrel vs rabbit damage
- Avoid common false positives (for example, weathering, insect activity, human disturbance)
- Record impact using standardised WildTrackPro field protocols
- Assess severity in a way that feeds directly into population modelling and management planning.
In short, the course isn’t just education. It is orientation for using WildTrackPro as it’s meant to be used.
From Signs to Strategy
There’s no shortage of people walking woodlands with clipboards or counting deer at dawn. But without structured data, even the most experienced stalker is operating on gut feel.
WildTrackPro is changing that. Our goal is to bring precision and consistency to woodland management, giving users across the UK a way to not only collect but act on mammal damage data.
This is where the industry is going. Impact led, evidence based, landscape aware. The new course helps you see what’s happening on the ground. The software helps you do something about it.
If you would like to see more about the course please follow this link: The Woodland Mammal Damage & Impact Assessment Course
And if you would like to get into deer stalking, then there's no better place to start than the Proficient Deer Stalker level 1 (PDS1) which you can find here: Proficient Deer Stalking Course - PDS1
