Land holders and managers along with landcare and environment groups want Victoria to remove protections for feral deer, as booming populations wreak havoc on agriculture and the local environment.<\/p>\n
Jordan Crook, from the Victorian National Parks Association, said recognising deer as pests \u2013 alongside foxes, rabbits and pigs \u2013 would bring Victoria in line with the rest of mainland Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cFeral deer are spreading across the state at a rapid rate, destroying critical habitat for threatened species such as rainforests and alpine bogs, and starting to heavily impact agricultural production and increasingly becoming a road hazard,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s time to list feral deer as a pest, invest in effective and science-based control, and where possible, eradicate feral deer populations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crook said deer were protected alongside native animals in the Wildlife Act due to a \u201clegislative relic\u201d, which created confusion and added bureaucracy for those wanting to control their numbers.<\/p>\n
In a letter to state agriculture and environment ministers, more than 100 land owners and managers, environment groups and leading academics called for the legal status of deer to be changed from protected wildlife to pest animal, as part of a review of the Wildlife Act.<\/p>\n
This would provide clarity for controlling the impact of \u201cwhat has become a serious pest\u201d, the letter said. Signatories included Knox city council, Hancock Victorian Plantations Holdings and dozens of landcare and land management groups.<\/p>\n
Dr Alex Maisey, an ecologist at La Trobe University, said feral deer were decimating cool temperate rainforests like Sherbrooke Forest in the Dandenong Ranges, where people came from all over the world to see lyrebirds.<\/p>\n
\u201cMonbulk Creek was a lovely little cool temperate rainforest with sassafras trees. I used to happily drink the water of that little spring-fed creek. It had crystal-clear water and moss all over the edges of the creek and lots of ferns. Now it literally runs turbid with mud because there\u2019s deer wallows all along that creek.\u201d<\/p>\n
Victoria\u2019s feral deer population was potentially the largest in Australia, according to the Invasive Species Council. Estimates ranged from hundreds of thousands to more than a million. Meanwhile, about 137,090 were harvested by hunters in 2023, according to the state\u2019s Game Management Authority.<\/p>\n