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Final Report; Aerial thermal helicopter survey of feral deer in the Cardinia Creek Catchment area.

1/18/2022

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The final report is now available - click here.
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Vegetation Survey - So far and what now?

10/26/2021

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Mike Hall, October 2021
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What a saga this has been! Covid, as for so many enterprises, has not been our friend. It delayed our planned aerial survey for over a year, and similarly for the vegetation (ground) survey. Hopefully we will be on our way again soon.
A recapIn late 2019, the CDMC received funding of $25,000 from Melbourne Water to conduct survey work in the Cardinia Creek catchment as a part of their Liveable Communities grant scheme. Though the original plan was to use most of this funding for a camera-trap survey, this proved to be beyond the budget if we wanted meaningful data. After a lot of head scratching and conversations with representatives and scientists from Melbourne Water and Parks Vic, we decided on a new vegetation survey method which had been developed by Dr Ami Bennett of Melbourne University. This survey lends itself very well to the use of citizen science and does not require expensive equipment. This reduction in cost means we will have funds left over to gain the services of a research scientist to help with both the implementation and interpretation of the survey and the data generated.
In May this year, after many covid delays, we were finally able to hold a field training day, conducted by Dr Bennett herself. Twelve local community members, our “citizen scientists”, were taught the survey technique, with the aim of them training further citizen scientists to conduct the survey. It was a lovely day, we all learned heaps, became experts in wombat, roo and deer poo and had a lot of fun. All up we so far have about 25 interested citizen scientists either ready to go, or waiting for the chance to be trained up soon.
What does the survey entail?The survey is a vegetation impact and faecal scat count survey.
The method involves generating random transects in the landscape 150m long. Working in pairs, observers move along the transects, and at 5m intervals assessments are made of the vegetation damage and faecal scat counts in four quadrants, N. S, E & W. At the same time, observations of other deer damage is recorded ie tree rubbing, wallows, resting sites and trails. Each transect takes between 1 ½ to 3 hours. These findings are recorded on a chart, from which the data can be downloaded and the results tabulated.
What outcomes does the survey give?With the vegetation damage being split into that which is above one metre and that which is below one metre, it allows an estimate of the relative damage being done by deer against that being caused by native animals – native animals do very little browsing above one metre. The purpose of doing the scat count is that it gives a very good relationship over time with the deer population density – ie as the deer number rises and falls, the scat count rises and falls in a linear relationship. Being able to graph the amount of vegetation damage against the rise or fall of the deer population will finally give the scientific and local community data on the severity of deer related damage matched against population densities.
What are the benefits to the CDMC and the broader community?The CDMC are committed to protecting our environment through humane deer reduction. The information generated by the survey will firstly quantify the amount of damage being done by deer. There is very little scientific data currently to hand about the effect of deer on the environment, nor which environments are the hardest hit and by which species of deer. This sort of data is critical in understanding this and in working out how to protect the most sensitive environments.
Secondly, being able to map the recovery (or decline) in the environment as deer numbers fall (or rise) will give us an indication as to whether the current culling efforts are having an effect both in deer population density and vegetation health, where they are having an effect and how many deer will need to be removed for the environment to recover.
What now?As soon as covid allows, we will be able to get back into the field with all our citizen scientists ready for either further training or immediate action. The transects have been identified and the required equipment purchased. With the warming of the weather and an easing of restrictions, you should see us out there within a few weeks or so.
Getting involvedThis is a citizen science project which will have university oversight. If you are interested in any of the following:
  • Joining a local citizen science project,
  • helping and understanding your local environment,
  • learning and gaining an understanding of the scientific process,
  • working with like-minded people,
  • seeing for yourself the impact of deer on our native vegetation,
then you might want to consider joining our team. You do not need special skills and we will train you in the process. You will work with another team member and you can do as little or as much as you want. Enthusiasm and a moderate degree of fitness will be required, although we are able to match the transects to various abilities to some degree. We currently have people ranging in ages from early 20s to mid-70s.
To learn more or register your interest, contact the email below.
But that is not allWe have recommenced our discussions with Deakin University (through Prof. Euan Ritchie) and hope to have a research scientist on board to oversee and interpret the results of our citizen science data as it comes in. We hope this will be the beginning of a long term relationship with Deakin Uni in helping to manage and understand the deer problem in the Cardinia Creek catchment.
We will also be looking at involving students from the local high schools in this and other projects.
Watch this space.
For further information or if you would like to be involved in this project, please contact us at: info@cardiniadeer.org.au
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Survey techniques used for monitoring deer and deer damage – a brief summary

5/31/2020

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Monitoring deer – the what, the where and the how (many).

Australia doesn’t have a lot of data on deer. Until now we haven’t really needed it. Deer numbers were small. They posed no threat to primary producers, no threat to the environment and the native animals who live there, no threat on our roads.

But in the last few years this has changed. Their numbers have increased exponentially and now we are beginning to see just how destructive they can be.

So now the scientific community are playing catchup: how many deer are there? What species are there and where are they? How do they move and behave in the Australian landscape? What do they eat, what weeds do they distribute, what effect are they having on our waterways and peatlands, what diseases do they carry, and pass on, … there is a long list of unknowns, few knowns.

Government agency and environment groups are becoming increasingly active in their efforts to gain some of this data. Below is a precis of some of the more common methods being used:

Animal surveys:

Camera-trap surveys

Camera traps are motion and/or infrared sensitive cameras which are strategically placed and left in situ to take images of animal movement in their vicinity. They are usually left in place for periods of weeks, after which their images are downloaded and visually assessed for species types, numbers and locations.

Camera-trap surveys will usually be trying to ascertain one of three types of information:

Relative abundance

  • Easy, relatively cheap
  • Checks for population change over time ie long-term studies
  • Prone to error and miscalculation


Occupancy

  • More complex
  • For emerging populations
  • Calculates % of area inhabited, not numbers of deer


Density
  • Highly complex, much more expensive, requiring complex statistical analysis
  • Measures the number of deer in a given area ie stocking rate
  • Good for determining the impact of control measures
  • Better suited for smaller sized sites


Advantages

  • very effective
  • easily repeatable
  • can use citizen science
  • cheap in the long term, especially if citizen science is engaged
  • good for smaller populations and denser forests


Disadvantages

  • need good cameras (>$300 each) and a lot of them, sometimes 60 or more
  • initially expensive, especially for larger areas
  • visually processing images is very time consuming and can exhaust volunteer enthusiasm


Future

  • visual recognition software almost at the stage where it can identify individual species which will aid in processing images. This will significantly reduce cost/time & volunteer fatigue
  • within camera IT becoming available which can communicate when species are present remotely and either send an alert or close an enclosure gate etc


Aerial surveys

Aerial surveys are done either by helicopter or drone. Helicopter surveys can be either manned (ie. visual only), use infrared cameras or both infrared & visual; drone surveys use infrared cameras only. Drones can be either the vertical or horizontal launch types.
Surveys are normally done at dawn or dusk when the deer are more active and come out of the bush. This also allows better differentiation between the heat signature of the animals and the cooler background. Sometimes this is not possible in more populated areas due to concerns of disturbance, and surveys may need to be extended into the mornings and afternoons.

The data gathered is then assessed and mapped to give an indication of the location and density of the deer population. This is increasingly being aided by species recognition software.

Aerial surveys are becoming increasingly popular as their costs decrease and the technology improves.

Advantages

Helicopter over drone:

  • more economic over larger areas
  • can be manned and therefore allow visual comparison to the IR camera
  • better over hilly country
  • tend to disturb animals and cause them to move, allowing greater chance of seeing them through denser canopy
  • cover greater area in a shorter time

Drone over a helicopter:

  • they can fly lower and closer to houses; good for more populated areas
  • cause less disturbance to land owners

In general, aerial surveys are of greatest benefit over large areas, with large numbers of animals and with open vegetation.

Disadvantages

  • drones, by regulation, must fly within line of sight of the operator. This means multiple sites will be required in hilly areas, meaning one survey with helicopter the survey may take several days of work with a drone. This can increase costs markedly
  • helicopters especially can be noisy and greater care must be taken around built-up areas
  • not reliable yet in differentiating deer species
  • cost – neither are cheap, though, because less working hours are required in set-up and monitoring, they may well prove competitive over time. At the moment the costs of helicopters and drones is similar, though very dependant on topography, tree cover and residential density. Drones are becoming increasingly competitive though due to improving technology

Future

  • IR camera technology is continually improving, resulting in better definition & image refresh rates, allowing better species recognition and faster flying speeds
  • Improvement in drone technology is allowing better control & the transport of heavier equipment over longer distances.
  • Drones are getting cheaper, decreasing overall costs
  • Species recognition software is continually improving, allowing better identification and separation of species


Direct visual surveys

Just what it says – simply people observing deer in their own surrounds, logging the data, including date, time & location and other observations. It can be with or without binoculars or, if after dark, with a thermal imaging scope.
With proper scientific input, this data can be quite valuable. Not all surveys require advanced technology nor large amounts of expertise. This makes visual surveys a good mechanism for engaging the community.

The DeerScan app is an example of a direct survey technique, where members of the community can use the app to record sightings of deer. These records can include other signs of deer as well, including finding deer scat, wallows, tree rubbings or even hearing deer. CDMC are registered as a Group within DeerScan. For more information on DeerScan and how you might be able to help us monitor deer, read the article on DeerScan under Get Involved on our website.

Some other methods of recording animal sightings, including deer, is the Atlas of Living Australia or iNaturalist, which are available free to all.
Radio trackingWhat are theyThis requires the placing of a radio tracking device on each animal. The device emits a signal which can then be used to locate the animal. Some of these need to be tracked using a hand held aerial, whereas others can be picked up and located by satellite.

Advantages


  • Satellite-linked devices can give information about animal movements to gain a better knowledge about the movement of deer through the district and deer behaviour – where they eat, where they rest, deer social interaction
  • Much of this can be done from the comfort of a desk, with a daily location map on your computer screen


Disadvantages

  • Very expensive: the devices are not cheap and putting them on the deer is very expensive, requiring capture & sedation of the deer
  • The devices may influence deer behaviour subsequent to the trapping
  • Animal welfare issues – deer are easily stressed and can damage themselves when being trapped


Radio tracking would be a wonderful tool to add to the deer knowledge base, as there is scarce information about the behaviour of deer in our landscape. Understanding this would be a wonderful help in planning for better techniques in controlling deer. Unfortunately it is extremely expensive and due to animal ethics reasons are usually conducted by a university or other scientific organisation.

Faecal pellet surveys

Not the most romantic of surveys, but highly effective. In this technique, regular counts of faecal pellets are conducted at nominated sites over a regular timeframe. This is then compared over time to see if the counts decrease or increase.

Advantages

  • Very cheap
  • Little expertise required
  • Good for monitoring changes of deer population over time
  • Good use of citizen science


Disadvantages

  • Not a good indicator of deer numbers
  • Not reliable in differentiating deer species
  • Need scientific help to set the study up


Note: The use of DNA analysis of faecal samples can also be very valuable in identifying species, population sizes (variation found between samples) and the origins and movement of deer over time. It is not commonly done due to expense and the expertise required.

Vegetation surveys

There are three major categories of these:

  • Monitoring which species are present and in what quantities
  • Monitoring the regrowth rates of species – ie How many saplings are surviving? How many new plants are coming through?
  • Monitoring the damage being done to existing vegetation


Advantages

  • They give some of the most important information ie exactly how much damage is being done. What are happening to the existing species? Is biodiversity being affected?
  • Very accurate and repeatable studies
  • Give a good indication over time of the state of the environment
  • Give a good indication of the impact of deer
  • Are very useful when monitoring the environmental effects of an animal reduction program
  • Give useful parameters when applying for government grant monies to control deer, where you can actually demonstrate the environmental value of reducing deer numbers


Disadvantages

  • Vegetation surveys are quite technical and require a lot of expertise both in setting them up and assessing them
  • Not so good for citizen science due to expertise required
  • Expensive
  • Take years to get meaningful results


Other

There are several other areas of measuring deer impact, such as loss of farm income, monitoring costs of deer mitigation, costs of deer vehicle collisions. Too many to cover in this article.

If you have further information in this area, or questions relating to any of the above, we would love to hear from you. Please email us at info@cardiniadeer.org.au



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Protected Species vs Pest Animal

2/14/2020

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Why has the Victorian government persisted with classing deer as “protected” ?

Commonwealth and state governments recognise that deer are a key threatening process in
the landscape; they are having a major financial impact on farming communities, are
threatening biodiversity and are an increasing danger on our roads. Deer are not native.

Victoria is the last remaining mainland state to keep listed deer as a protected species. All the others have declared them as a pest species, including now NSW, who changed their status in 2019. In Victoria, there is no official stated justification for their protected status. However, following discussions between government officials and the Cardinia Deer Management Coalition (CDMC), the following reasons seem to prevail:

1. Changing the status to pest animal will reduce the government’s ability to regulate the
manner in which deer are hunted. For example, hunters may not use the appropriate
calibre of weapon or weight of bullet, resulting in the inhumane killing or injury of deer.
They are also concerned about the use of spotlighting in relation to the hunter’s code of
a “fair chase.”

2. Changing the status to feral animal may cause a financial and management burden to
farmers. This is because landowners would then be compelled to control deer on their
property. It would also further compel government agencies to control deer on public
land.

3. Unregulated hunting may encourage “rogue” hunters to target deer, especially in the
state parks and private land. This could become a public safety issue as less skilled and
less ethical hunters become more active.

4. Changing the status to pest species is not required anymore because of recent changes
to legislation removing the protected status of deer on private land if deer are causing
harm or damage. This means landowners can control deer (except for hog deer) on
private land without a permit.

The CDMC are strongly of the view that deer should be declared as a pest species in Victoria, as they already are in Queensland, South Australia, West Australia, The ACT and the Northern Territory. This would bring them into line with the other states and reflect in words and law the recognised seriousness of the problem of deer in the Australian landscape.

In giving our reasons, we will address each of the four topics listed above:

1. "Reducing the government’s ability to regulate the manner in which deer are hunted."
  • “Fair chase” does not apply when deer are controlled (private land), only when they are hunted (public land.) There are two ethical standards being applied depending on which side of the fence a deer is standing. This regulation specifies the calibre of rifle, type of bullet or use of spotlights when hunting deer.
  • The use of the term “fair chase” only has meaning to the hunter, not to the deer. The most important concern should be that hunting and controlling deer should be humane across all land tenures. Regulations can and should be changed to reflect this.
  • Stringent laws should be in place for the humane treatment of all animals, including when controlling them, even the ones we don’t like. Deer are not special in this sense; control of all pest species should be humane, whether they are foxes or cats, camels or cane toads.
        
2.  "A financial and management burden to farmers …", "compelled to control deer … "
  • Firstly, this is not just about farmers, but about owners of all the land where deer can feed and take refuge, both private and public.
  • Deer are already a financial burden to farmers. With protected status, your neighbour could be feeding and nurturing on their land the same deer that are jumping the fence and destroying your crops/vineyard/orchard. Legally. It is not fair that those suffering the most loss should shoulder the burden of controlling the deer that are being nourished across the whole landscape, including public lands.
  • Farmers already have pest animals on their farms which they are already required by law to control, such as rabbits, foxes, pigs and goats. These animals have been declared as pests for the same reasons deer are of concern.
  • It is right and necessary to require control of an introduced feral species which threaten our natural heritage and livelihoods.
  • Government agencies should also be compelled to control deer as a pest species, especially in areas where they are threat to farm incomes. Where public areas are to be set aside for recreational hunting, the effects of this on surrounding landowners need to be assessed and mitigated where necessary, as a government expense.

3. "Unregulated hunting may encourage illegal hunters …"
  • Illegal and “rogue” hunting has always been a problem and always will be a problem. Farmers and landowners already experience on a regular basis the sight of a deer shot near the roadside on their land with its head cut off.
  • The best way to reduce this with respect to deer hunting is -
    • Firstly to encourage and resource the stringent policing of the current regulations and enact and apply proper penalty legislation.
    • Secondly ensuring proper hunter education is available.
    • And thirdly, to reduce deer numbers, especially in urban, periurban and farming areas.

4. "Changing the status to pest species is not required anymore because of recent changes
to legislation."
  • We acknowledge recent changes of legislation make it easier for landowners to control deer on their own property, however …
  • An individual landowner cannot control a problem that is not limited to their own property. Our neighbours must all (private and public) play their part.
  • Calling a feral species a pest animal sends a strong message to the whole community: these animals are not benevolent bystanders, they are destroying our environment, affecting livelihoods and community amenity and are a danger on our roads. The message must get out and it is the government’s role to lead this.
  • All other mainland states have grappled with this issue and declared deer a pest species
  • It is fundamentally wrong that a damaging invasive species should not be recognised as such in law.
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Damage to Property

12/17/2018

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The impact of deer on private property and costs to our farming community are escalating rapidly

When the first community meeting to discuss the issue of deer in our catchment was organised by the Upper Beaconsfield Conservation Group, environmental damage was at the forefront of their thoughts and concerns. It quickly became apparent during the Q & A open forum session, the issue of deer encroaching on private land was possibly THE big issue for most people there.
Boundary fences were no barrier to deer, who can leap over a two metre fence from a standing start. Landowners had no control over the deer and the damage being caused in a single night could be devastating.
We have had correspondence from private landowners like:
“I have read the interesting article in the Upper Beaconsfield Village Bell, in reference to the feral deer problem.
My property is situated on Wellington Road, and we are visited daily by a herd of deer, which is causing damage to paddocks, and garden!
I am actually at my wits end as to how this constant invasion will ever cease.”
One landowner’s reply to a survey asking farmers to quantify the value of damage to their farming enterprises was eye-opening:
“Our biggest impact is on our fruit trees.
Trees that are 6-30 years old and 6 m tall can be badly damaged in one night.
It is very disheartening, expensive to replace (cost of new trees, and labour and machinery hire to removal the old trees and putting in a new ones) and then there is the economic cost of the fruit lost each year until the new tree is fully mature (15 years).”

All up this farmer put a conservative estimate of replacement cost & lost income per tree before reaching maturity of $1610. As well as this there is the cost of erecting 2m high deer proof fencing around the property, which regularly need repairing due to damage caused by deer.
Among the hardest hit are the Landcare communities. Revegetation works they have been carrying out for decades are being hard hit as the usual tree guards offer no protection against deer. For example, a Bessie Ck Landcare property owner wrote recently that
“our experience is that the deer pass through so damage is sporadic but definitely varies from 100% destruction for a re-vegetation area to  persistent  pruning causing stunting over years, to times when nothing happens for a season or two.” 
A Tonimbuk farmer was nearly in tears at a recent community meeting as he described the devastation wreaked by deer on the revegetation works he had carried out on his own property since the 2009 bushfires.
There are some landowners who “don’t mind bambi at the bottom of the paddock.” Deer are a beautiful animal and can’t be blamed for being transported to Australia. And they don’t “intend” to do harm. But harm happens, and bambi doesn’t stay in that paddock, but goes into the next, and the garden next door, and the orchard over the road.
(For a transcript of a letter from one of our farming members written in response to the DEWLP Draft Deer Management Strategy, read here.)
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Road Safety

12/17/2018

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Due to their sheer size, speed & escalating numbers, deer are now a major danger on our local roads.

In 2015 deer overtook cattle as the fourth most common animal collision reported to the RACV in Victoria.

Deer are now commonly seen beside and crossing the roads in our area, and local panel beaters have noted an increasing number of deer related repairs.
Deer are a serious concern to motorists due to their absolute lack of road sense and to their size and speed. A fully grown sambar can weigh over 400kg and, with a high centre of gravity, this can be a lethal combination. This means that in a frontal collision at speed, the body of the deer will likely come over the bonnet, through the windscreen and into the cabin of the car. Even the smaller fallow deer at up to 200kg would be a serious threat. Australia has already had its first fatal deer accident, although fatal accidents are well known in North America.
Some general advice:
  • deer are more active between dusk and midnight, and at dawn, so either avoid driving at these times or slow down
  • the worst time of year is in the autumn when deer are mating and so are more likely to be moving between areas looking for a mate
  • motorcycle riders are particularly at risk due to the sheer size of the animals
  • drivers of the newer hybrid and electric cars are also at increased risk: these cars are much quieter, so deer have less warning to move away from the road.
Deer-vehicle collisions have been an ongoing issue in Europe and the USA for decades, where a number of methods are being used or trialled to overcome this problem, from exclusion fencing to flashing lights alerting the presence of deer on the road and more. Some councils in Victoria have now installed deer warning signs in addition to the usual kangaroo, wombat and emu signs. In the end, along with trying to keep deer numbers down, a combination of these methods may be required to minimise the impact of deer on our roads.
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Impacting the Environment.

12/9/2018

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Deer are not native to Australia. They have only been here since about the 1860s. Along with the likes of rabbits, foxes, sparrows, blackbirds and many other species, they were originally introduced into the environment by homesick English settlers, both for sentimental reasons and hunting enjoyment. In the 1970s and ‘80s, deer farming became popular as a new way to generate farm income. As with many boom industries, the bust soon followed and many farmers simply opened their gates and let the deer out.
It seemed for a while that deer were quite benevolent in our landscape: cute little bambis standing by the road verge, quietly nibbling away on the grass with no adverse effects, effortlessly leaping over the fence as we drove by.
Unfortunately, it was not to remain so. We are not yet sure why, but things have suddenly changed over the last two decades. Roadside sightings are no longer rare nor special and we have now had our first deer related fatalities on the nation’s roads. Farmers now find themselves competing with deer on a daily basis. And the Australian environment, especially in the creek valleys, is being trashed.
Deer are known as “ecosystem engineers”. These are organisms that create, significantly modify, maintain or destroy a habitat. Ecosystem engineers can have a large impact on the species richness and landscape-level heterogeneity, especially when such an organism arrives in a new area. This is happening in the Cardinia valley right now, to such an extent that both Melbourne Water and Parks Vic have both started to take serious action to limit deer numbers to preserve the natural environment.
Deer damage the environment in a number of ways. Being browsers, they eat a lot of our native shrubs, such as pomaderris and muttonwood, along with the emerging seedlings of the trees, reducing food sources and nesting sites for native wildlife. When the deer population reaches a certain size this prevents regrowth of the various forest species. They also rub their antlers on the trees, effectively ringbarking and killing them. Unlike kangaroos and wallabies, they are cloven hooved, which means they cause impaction of the ground wherever they walk, leaving hard trails through the bush. In the swampy areas they leave pug marks in the ground or worse, create mud wallows, damage the creek banks, increasing siltation and water turbidity, affecting the fresh water crayfish and the platypus that live on them.
Feral deer have been described as “the most serious invasive problem” in NSW and the ACT. The situation is arguably worse in Victoria. Our environment, still struggling to cope with the impact of feral cats and foxes, and feeling the early effects of global warming, can not afford another threat to its existence.
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RESPONSE TO DRAFT DEER MANAGEMENT PLAN

11/24/2018

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Below is a letter written by local Rosalie Counsell in response to the Draft Deer Management Plan. It is split in two sections; A) preamble, and B) specific response to the plan.

A) Preamble


We live on a 24 hectare property in Harkaway, in the peri urban foothills to the Dandenong Ranges. It has several heavily vegetated gullies that run down to the belt of bushland that follows the Cardinia Creek.
Over the past decade, Sambar and Fallow deer have become an increasing problem. They use these wildlife corridors as cover for their own movements, and are continually breaking down fences, damaging young trees (including ones we’ve planted) and encroaching on our pasture. As a result of their growing numbers (we’ve seen herds of twenty and thirty), we now struggle to run a dozen steers on the place.
We have a couple of hunters who come when they can, but the occasional kill they achieve is a drop in the ocean, and serves only to make the herds more canny. While ignoring us as we shout and wave our arms at them, when they spy a hunter, they vacate to the only one of our three adjoining properties where they seem to know they are safe.
We, and our neighbours, are starting to despair. The deer numbers – Fallow and Sambar – are mushrooming. As well as destroying our treasured bush environment, they are invading our gardens, gradually moving further and further from the creek area and presenting an increasing hazard on our roads. It is only a matter of time before a vehicle will hit one, and a collision with a Sambar could easily kill someone.
We believe that management of the deer populations in the peri urban areas is critical. Urbanisation is going to make normal control measures increasingly difficult to implement, yet it is here that their adverse impacts will be most visible. Once someone is killed as a result of a collision with a deer, or their numbers cause even more significant issues for the catchment areas, and/or they start encroaching on semi-urban gardens, the problem could escalate to nightmare proportions.
We believe that the main problem with this draft strategy is that it starts and ends with the wrong emphasis – namely that deer are recognised as a valuable hunting resource.
The fact that deer may have become a valuable resource to the hunting fraternity should not blind us to the fact that they are a large, destructive introduced species that are posing a major, expanding threat to a wide range of community assets and values across the state. No invasive exotic species released deliberately or accidentally into the wild should be protected by law.
CONCLUSION
The control of feral deer is too overwhelming a problem for ad hoc, individual measures. Sporadic guerrilla-type skirmishes on the periphery will achieve nothing and serve only to discourage all concerned.
What we are facing here is an invasion. It needs to be handled with the same principles of military planning, co-ordination and determination as would apply to fighting a war. And as with any invasion, the sooner and more decisively we respond the better. The enemy is already at our gates.

29 October 2018

B) Specific responses to the draft strategy
Our position can be summed up as follows:
  • There are no net economic benefits or positives to be gained from the presence of deer outside farms, and this strategy underplays the serious and growing threat they pose to our natural, rural and peri-urban environment. It also underplays the probable extent of the costs associated with a) the damage already being perpetrated on both public and private land, including commercial enterprises such as orchards and vineyards, and b) any realistic program to tackle the problem.
  • The last sentence of the first paragraph on Page 4 Summary reads: “It (the draft strategy) also recognises that deer are a valuable hunting resource”. This should be replaced by: “It also recognises that feral deer are valued as a game species by hunters whose hobby contributes directly and indirectly to the economy”.
  • Rather than write misleading and meaningless jargon about “maximising the positives that can be gained from their presence” (Ref Page 5 The challenge), it would be more accurate and appropriate to talk about investigating ways of off-setting the expense of the necessary culling programme, such as expanding the commercial deer harvesting industry.
  • On Page 6 Current Actions, the draft lists the locations of Parks Victoria’s joint invasive animal programmes. This includes the Dandenong Ranges, but feral deer are now securely entrenched in the Southern Ranges foothills where they have large tracts of bushland in which to breed and take refuge.
  • The funding allocations listed on Page 6 Current actions illustrate the extent to which the emphasis of the draft strategy is misplaced, with over 50% going to the Firearms Safety Foundation to develop information, only 36% going to Parks Victoria to help control deer in parks, and nothing towards controlling them in rural and peri-urban areas.
  • We support the action listed on Page 7 Figure 1: “Improve management of farmed deer”.
  • On Page 10 Deer in Victoria, the draft states: “It is unknown how climate change will affect the distribution and abundance of deer …” What is known is that the increased frequency and severity of droughts predicted by climate change scientists and currently being experienced in vast swathes of south eastern Australia causes wildlife, both native and feral, to spread beyond their normal habitat range, not only onto farm and semi-rural land but right into urban areas.
  • Ref Page 12 Control of problem deer in Victoria:
    • Given that feral deer are moving in and out of private properties from the protection of public land, it would be unreasonable and unrealistic to expect individual property owners to bear the cost of the expensive control measures that are almost certainly going to be required, especially in more closely settled and intensive farming areas.
    • These landowners are already suffering the consequences of a problem that is not of their making that they are ill equipped to tackle.
    • Unlike rabbits, the deer are not based on their land but dispersed across the whole region.
    • Unlike weeds, you can’t control them with simple tools like a hoe or a spray pack.
    • It is a wider community issue that requires a taxpayer-funded response.
  • In an ideal world, there would be no deer (nor any other invasive exotic animal species) outside strictly controlled – and controllable – environments such as properly set up, well managed farms. Therefore, sustainable hunting of deer should not be a Government principle, as it implies that if deer numbers drop below a certain point, strategies should be put in place to allow them to build up again.
  • Deer have become a problem as the result of negligence (escape from farms) or delinquency (deliberate release). Such behaviour should not be rewarded by official sanction of their existence in the wild on the grounds that it provides enjoyment for hunters and the claim of a paltry unsubstantiated contribution to the Government purse.
  • Ref Page 14 The status of deer: All species of deer should be classified as pest animals and the relevant Acts amended or fine-tuned to overcome the perceived difficulties that this would currently create. For instance:
  • Regarding the obligation under the Wildlife Act 1975 for landowners to “take all reasonable steps to control deer on their properties”, this could be defined simply as not standing in the way of government authorities in implementing the appropriate strategies.
  • The clause precluding hunting in areas managed under the National Parks Act 1975 could be amended to except feral deer (and pigs, if appropriate).
  • The prohibited pest animal classification should not in any instance preclude laws ensuring that destruction is humane and safe. If that is the current situation, it should be rectified forthwith.
  • Ref Page 15 The opportunity for change:
  • All peri-urban areas should be classified as eradication zones.
  • Government funded control measures should not be at the landowners’ discretion, though a consultative approach with some flexibility would be needed.
  • Ref Page 18 Goal 1: Action 1.4.1 refers to “archery only” areas. It is hard to imagine that archery would ever be a reliable means of killing deer humanely. Dating as it does from mediaeval times before the advent of firearms, we suspect that the general public would deem it to be not only unpalatable but positively barbaric.
  • Ref Page 20 Goal 3: Disseminating deer management information packs to landowners in affected areas would only be useful if they included a realistic plan of action supported by a Government or community based task force.
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