Cambridgeshire farmer shoots deer to feed his two African lions

Andy Johnson feeds his lions off-cuts of culled deer from surrounding farms

A farmer who owns two African lions has been given legal permission to cull deer for them to eat.

Johnsons of Old Hurst in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, recently acquired one male and one female lion for its zoo.

Andy Johnson, who runs the site, has a firearms licence to legally shoot deer, and he uses the meat for his butcher's shop and to keep his lions well fed.

"We use deer and we use road kill as well," Mr Johnson said about the lions' food.

Mr Johnson, whose farm is also home to crocodiles, macaws, meerkats and pumas, said he was allowed to shoot deer in fields where farmers had given consent for the culling to happen.

He said it helped control numbers of the deer, including muntjac and Chinese water deer, which he said were at an "all-time high".

Mr Johnson also said the problem was that there were "no natural predators in the UK and people are eating less".

Mr Johnson said the lions were fed five to six times a week

Mr Johnson uses the off-cuts to feed to his lions, Lydia and Ghana.

Other farmers from the local area also supply him with culled deer and the lions are fed five to six times each week.

Mr Johnson has been given legal permission to shoot deer where farmers have consented

Mr Johnson, who also owns the butchery and restaurant at Old Hurst, said: "Last year alone the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs figures estimated they [deers] brought £4.5m damage to crops.

"These animals have come here as invasive species through whatever means and then wiped out our native animals.

"Things we've grown up with have no longer got anywhere to live.

"Let's forget about the animals - lets think of the trees, all the young saplings growing up get grazed off before turning into mature trees."

Natural England said the UK deer population had grown to over two million, "causing environmental harm and damage to new and existing woodlands".

It said it had set targets to treble tree planting rates by the end of this Parliament and to increase the amount of land covered in trees and woodland.

"As part of this, we have committed to publishing a deer management strategy to help meet these targets and our wider ambition to reach net zero by 2050," it said.A BBC Countryside article about deer culling said fencing could be another way of controlling deer.

Rewilding groups, meanwhile, suggest the reintroduction of predators could bring numbers under control.