54,000-strong population of wild deer labelled ‘sustainable’

Tasmania’s massive wild deer population may have left out the exclusion of the World Heritage Area, but critics are questioning whether the feral population is sustainable.

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THE state government says a recent survey found there are about 54,000 wild deer in Tasmania, but critics have hit out at the exclusion of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area from the survey.

Primary Industries and Water Minister Guy Barnett said on Friday a deer management plan would be developed to help the government attempt to balance the impacts of wild deer on agricultural production, conservation areas and forestry, while maintaining deer as a traditional recreational hunting resource.

He said an aerial survey to estimate deer numbers, in response to a 2017 Legislative Council inquiry, had found “an abundance” of about 54,000 wild fallow deer.

Mr Barnett said the survey confirmed there was “a sustainable population” of wild fallow deer.

But, Greens leader Cassy O’Connor said Mr Barnett was “failing farmers and the environment.”

“In declaring the feral deer population as ‘sustainable’, he is allowing them to breed in huge numbers, damage fencing, crops and wilderness areas unchecked,” she said.

“The survey ignored two thirds of the state [the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area].

“Mr Barnett must act to remove protections feral deer have under the same Tasmanian law that covers threatened and endangered species.”

Invasive Species Council CEO Andrew Cox said the group was disappointed that three years after a parliamentary inquiry found fallow deer had spread into sensitive conservation areas, the state government was “only now starting to develop a plan to tackle the problem.”