NSW Government pressured to declare wild deer a pest species

PRESSURE for states to declare feral deer a pest species and adopt plans for control and eradication.

There are reports of large groups of feral deer in the Waite Conservation Reserve. The Adelaide Uni which runs the park fears...

VICTORIA  could be left as one of the few states to not declare feral deer as a pest as pressure mounts in NSW to fast-track a plan for their control and eradication.

Concern over booming numbers has spread throughout the eastern states and South Australia in the past 12 months as the CSIRO declared the population of the six species of deer had topped 200,000.

NSW Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham has challenged the major political parties ahead of the March election to stop “protecting deer as a hunting resource” and declare the six species found in Australia as pests.

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A CSIRO report, Australia’s Biosecurity Future, last year found lack of control measures could lead to wild deer numbers rising, which would increase the risk of foot and mouth and blue-tongue outbreaks.

Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia have declared deer a feral pest but Victoria, NSW and Tasmania — states with the largest deer populations — protect deer for recreational hunting.

A Victorian report last year found game hunting licence holders generated $439 million in Victoria in 2013.

Pest species: A Greens MP wants the next NSW Government to declare deer a “pest” species and develop an eradication plan..

“Feral deer are the most significant emerging pest animal threat in NSW, causing major ecological and agricultural impacts,” Mr Buckingham said.

“The Greens want them to be declared a pest in line with feral pigs, rabbits, locusts, wild dogs and foxes.

“Feral deer are a serious agricultural pest as they consume and damage crops and stock feed, compete with livestock, damage fences and lead to an increase in the population of wild dogs.”

In 2012, NSW passed special regulations related to deer hunting, which included bag limits, a deer season, the prohibition of hunting at night and bans on shooting from a vehicle or with a spotlight.

NSW Farmers’ Association has also raised concerns about how deer are controlled on public lands and warned about the risk to livestock.

Invasive Species Council chief executive Andrew Cox said deer populations in Victoria and NSW would keep growing. He said control measures could not “get much worse” and it was “easier to shoot a wallaby or a wombat than a deer now”.