Hunters have so far shot 1,440 of the fallow deer living in the dune area west of Amsterdam, alderman Udo Kock has told the city’s finance committee.

The city and province of Noord-Holland want to slash the deer population from 3,800 to 1,000 in order to reduce damage to plants and trees and reduce the risk of road accidents.

Officials hope to have reduced the deer population to 1,000 by 2020. Female deer are being targeted to keep the population down.

Efforts to keep the deer in the reserve with high fences and cattle grids have failed to contain all the animals and there were 61 traffic accidents involving deer in 2015.

Animal rights groups have tried to have the mass cull stopped but the courts ruled in favour of the cull.