The plan aims to enhance tools, strategies, capacity, and awareness to reduce the impact of feral deer across landscapes to acceptable levels, where desired by local communities, regions, or jurisdictions, and to eradicate them where feasible.
The Plan is for land management agencies, groups and organisations, governments, and land managers who are impacted by feral deer, or are likely to be impacted soon.
Actively stop the spread, suppress, or eradicate Australian feral deer populations to reduce their impacts on agricultural, environmental, cultural and social assets.
The National Feral Deer Action Plan takes an aspirational, multifaceted approach to reduce the impacts of feral deer, by focusing on three goals:
1. Prevent the spread of large feral deer populations and minimise their impact.
2. Control or eradicate small, isolated feral deer populations before they spread.
3. Prioritise and protect important sites, including threatened species, ecological communities, and areas of national or international cultural or environmental significance, from feral deer impacts.
The Five-Year National Feral Deer Action Plan includes 22 actions, some of these were progressed in 2023-24 by the National Coordinator Program and others. This annual snapshot reflects the progress and accomplishments of the past year, with a comprehensive review of progress scheduled for release in 2026.
