Fire to fuel feral horse and deer breeding boom

Calls are mounting for aerial culling on feral horses and deer in the wake of the NSW and Victorian fires.

NOW is the time to get into fire-ravaged areas to aerially cull deer and feral horses before they breed and disperse on the back of rain and regrowth, says the nation’s Invasive Species Council.

“Because the canopy is more open and they’re congregated in smaller (remaining green) areas there’s a huge opportunity for large scale shooting,” council chief executive Andrew Cox said.

“Aerial shooting should be in the mix for deer and we argue for horses as well.

“Now, after the fires is the easiest time to do it before the population surges.”

Mr Cox said that while many deer and horses died in the fires, most were able to outrun slower moving fires this season and were now consuming and trampling what remained of the unburnt vegetation, which is vital to the threatened native species that remain.

Wild horses graze across unburnt patches of remnant vegetation in Kosciuszko National Park. Picture: Invasive Species Council

The council has conducted flights over Kosciuszko National Park that show its 20,000 strong feral horse population has survived the fires largely unscathed.

“We’ve also had anecdotal evidence from someone flying over the southeast (of NSW) who saw a big group of deer that had moved into one of the unburnt valleys,” Mr Cox said.

Australian Deer Association spokesman Barry Howlett backed the council’s call, saying land managers had been playing catch-up for decades trying to control feral deer.

“Here’s an opportunity to get in front of the problem,” Mr Howlett said. “It needs to be taken seriously by federal and state governments.”

Mr Howlett said the ADA had gone to Parks Victoria following the Bunyip fires early last year, with a proposal to heavily cull deer in the forests.

“By the time they got around to thinking about it the horses had bolted,” Mr Howlett said.

He said past fires, such as those that swept across Victoria’s northeast in 2003, led to a massive surge in deer numbers and their range on the back of regrowth.

Mr Cox said a similar picture emerged in the wake of the 1994 Royal National Park fires, where up until that time a small population of rusa deer had been kept in check.

“They (park managers) had the opportunity to go in and cull, but the government baulked and didn’t start (culling) for two to three years,” Mr Cox said.

The rusa deer population had exploded, doubling every couple of years and spreading into the Illawara escarpment.