Frequently Asked Questions
The plan outlines a collaborative national approach to stop the spread of large feral deer populations and reduce their impacts; control or eradicate small, isolated populations before they spread; and prioritise and protect significant sites from their impacts.
Investment, research and activity in management of feral deer increased in years leading up to the plan, with an opportunity to coordinate these efforts and share knowledge for more effective outcomes nationally. Also, the awareness of feral deer impacts by the Australian public was not sufficient to support the management efforts of agencies and land managers. The plan seeks to create a national level collaborative approach between government and non-government organisations to manage feral deer, addressing these gaps and driving more momentum to ramp up control efforts in strategic places.
The plan sets out three (3) goals for 2023-28 with 22 actions under those goals.
- Stop the spread of large populations and reduce their impacts
- Control or eradicate small populations before they spread
- Protect significant sites from impacts
The activities (some of which need additional resources to be implemented) seek to work towards achieving these goals.
The plan is not owned by a specific agency. It was developed by a multi-sector working group, with many groups and individuals contributing to its goal, direction and content.
The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry have funded the National Deer Management Coordinator to facilitate some of the activities in the plan until 2025. Other agencies, organisations, groups, and individuals are contributing to other components of the plan.
This is dependant on the State or Territory you are in.
- Queensland: Invasive species under the Biosecurity Act 2014 for deer that are living in a wild state and are not being farmed or kept for any other purpose.
- New South Wales: Not currently declared as an invasive species under the Biosecurity Act 2015. Property owners have a general responsibility to manage deer populations on their land, with no penalties applicable for not taking action.
- Victoria: All species of deer are listed as protected wildlife under the Wildlife Act 1975 with Chital, fallow, hog, red, rusa and sambar also declared as game species under the act and can be hunted by licensed game hunters. All deer species are classed as exotic fauna under the National Parks Act 1975, requiring extermination or control in all national and state parks, wilderness parks and other reserves,
- Australian Capital Territory: Six species of deer are listed as established species of national significance in ACT requiring control.
- Tasmania: Fallow deer are partly protected under Tasmanian Wildlife Regulations for hunting purposes. Population numbers are being controlled in some National Parks to protect signific environmental areas.
- South Australia: All deer species present in South Australia are declared for control under the Landscapes South Australia Act 2019, with a target to eradicate all feral deer by 2032. It is the responsibility of landholders to control all deer on their properties.
- Northern Territory: Sambar and Rusa deer are declared as a pest animal under the Territory Parks and Wildlife Act 1976, with population numbers needing to be reduced and the reduction of distribution spread across the Territory.
- Western Australia: Fallow and red deer are declared as pest species under the Biosecurity and Agriculture Management Act 2007, requiring a permit to keep, with all other deer species prohibited in Western Australia.
Deer were introduced into Australia for recreational hunting and commercial farming in the 1800s, with feral populations expanding in numbers and distribution across the country since then. The six established feral deer species have the capacity to inhabit much of Australia, creating significant impacts on communities and the agricultural industry, valued at approximately $91 million annually. Feral deer can ring bark trees, spread weeds and diseases, eat and trample sensitive plants and habitat, and destroy waterways with their hard hooves. Early action is critical to prevent the currently estimated 1–2 million deer from increasing to numbers that would devastate the agricultural industry, increase road crash incidences, and result in more deer foraging in urban gardens and interacting with people.
There are many ways Australian community members can be involved in reducing the impacts feral deer create.
Land managers and individual community members:
- Report sightings and evidence of deer to FeralScan, Atlas of Living Australia, Victorian Biodiversity Atlas or iNaturalist
- Get together with neighbours, to share knowledge, experiences and co-develop a coordinated plan to reduce impacts of feral deer. Implement coordinated aerial or ground culling programs with neighbours.
- Cull feral deer on your land yourself (under firearm licences and laws) or by engaging a commercial harvester, unpaid or paid pest controller.
- Allow coordinated aerial or ground culling programs (by agencies) to safely cull feral deer on your property.
- Seek involvement from a local pest management group, council, local land management agency or similar to govern, or coordinate a community-based control program.
- Property owners in peri-urban areas need to act early when feral deer numbers are low, with control measures expensive and difficult in these highly populated residential areas.
Recreational hunters:
- Learn more about feral deer impacts and their behaviour in your area, and ways to control them.
- Consider becoming an unpaid or paid pest controller for a local feral deer control program (often on private land) that seeks to strategically coordinate efforts to reduce a target number of feral deer in a set timeframe.
- Follow best practice feral deer control principles, including removing more deer than the number born (~35-50% per year from an area), targeting females as a priority, use effective equipment and times of day/season.
- Please report and discourage illegal releases of deer or poaching to police.
- Consider offering your services to local land holders in your area by registering with FarmerAssist to become a SSAA member and connect with property owners. Or get in touch with local deer control organisations, or promote your services through community networks, forums, or at land management events. Some of the best partnerships with land managers develop when both the shooter and land manager have a clear understanding of agreed expectations, strong trust of one another, and common attitudes and approaches.
Commercial harvesters:
- Consider participating in the initial knock-down phases of community-led deer control programs, so the community can then maintain population suppression, or mop-up the remaining low numbers of feral deer.
- Harvesters may need to move to new areas or species once harvests are no longer feasible.
- In Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia, the Australian Capital Territory, Western Australia and the Northern Territory feral deer are treated as pest animals and it is the responsibility of land managers to control feral deer. Land managers can engage staff; family members; paid or unpaid shooters; commercial harvesters or access advice and support from state and territory agencies for control in priority areas.
- In New South Wales, some areas of public land are designated to allow recreational hunting opportunities for feral deer (for meat, trophies or recreation).
- In Tasmania and Victoria, feral deer have a game status, providing a framework to support and manage recreational hunting and harvest. Under this status, feral deer (except hog deer, for which culling can be done under permit for land that is not a national park) can be culled in national parks by staff, or by land managers or their nominees on their property, when deer are causing damage to property or production. Landscape-scale management of feral deer can be hampered when neighbours have different, or conflicting management goals (game management or pest control).
- Carcass decomposition will depend on arrange of factors including the time of year, what type of environment it is in, how many scavengers visit, the insect activity and the location of the carcass (under canopy or in the open)
- The use of meat and other resources from culling programs are not always practical or an efficient use of time and resources. Carcasses can be situated in difficult to access terrain, pose safety concerns to retrieving personnel (heavy and awkward to manoeuvre) and add adsorbent costs to large culling programs that can be better spent on reducing deer numbers.
- Leaving carcasses to decompose in situ is a valuable function in an ecosystem and has been shown to add no long term increase in other feral or scavenging species due to the relatively short period the carcass is present.
- In situ carcasses can be used as a base to conduct secondary pest species control on fox, pig, wild dog and cats that visit the carcasses.
- It is important to act early to eradicate small isolated populations of feral deer, identified in the no-deer and containment buffer areas of the feral deer distribution map on page 12 of the Plan. Within both zones, the early, rapid eradication of isolated populations of fewer than 1000 deer will prevent exorbitant management efforts into the future.
- A coordinated national containment buffer program is facilitated by the National Feral Deer Management Coordinator, in collaboration with local and state initiatives and agencies. This will support consistency and collaboration across state and territory government agencies in surveillance, reporting, engagement with land managers, and rapid response plans to slow the spread of feral deer.
- A priority action of the plan is to build capacity and awareness of the impacts of feral deer, the benefits of controlling small populations of feral deer early, and the need for neighbors to work together.
- A national awareness program coordinated by the National Feral Deer Management Coordinator will build awareness through tailored social and digital media to peri-urban, agricultural and conservation audiences.
- The program will encourage the community to report sightings, provide workshops and forums to build capacity of land managers and agencies to implement best-practice control.
The plan recognises that recreational hunting, for the purpose of meat and trophy harvesting, can contribute to a small number of feral deer being removed from the landscape. But this alone is not enough to reduce growing population numbers, more an addition to support large feral deer control programs. Recreational hunters and sporting shooters can support the reduction in feral deer populations by:
- Prioritising the removal of female deer
- Focus efforts of areas where deer causing significant damage to ecosystems, infrastructure and farming land.
- Hunting feral deer at night with spotlights
- Removing more feral deer than the number that are born
- Coordinating efforts across property boundaries
- Use equipment that can increase the efficiency of culling programs (e.g. thermal or night vision optics and suppressors, as licensed and if permitted by legislation)
The plan suggests a wide selection of tools that can be utilised at different stages throughout a long-term control / eradication program. The same control tools can be used for all species of feral deer, although the way they are applied can vary and must be used in line with animal welfare standards. Appendix 2 of the Plan outlines current tools, opportunities to improve their use and opportunities to develop new tools that are more cost-effective, low-effort, accessible and has greater detection rates.
Access to public land for recreational hunting is governed by the legislation of each state and territory. The plan does not intend to influence changes to legislation either to decrease or increase public land hunting access. For current details in your area, please visit the relevant website:
NSW – Where can I hunt?
VIC – Where to hunt
QLD – Feral deer hunting is only permitted on private land with permission
SA – Feral deer hunting is only permitted on private land with permission
TAS – Public land hunting in Tasmania
WA – Feral deer hunting is only permitted on private land with permission
NT – Feral Deer hunting is only permitted in private land with permission
ACT – Feral deer hunting is only permitted on private land with permission
- The active sodium fluoroacetate compound, commonly known as 1080, naturally occurs in many native plants across Australia, which native animals have evolved to have a degree of tolerance to. In introduced vertebrates, 1080 halts the ability of cells to process energy and results in unconsciousness and death.
- 1080 poison is not approved for routine control of feral deer in Australia. Any proposal to use 1080 in this way would first be considered by the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority. This would involve a comprehensive assessment process to consider risks to human safety and non-target species as well as the potential for environmental residues.
For more information about Feral Deer in each State and Territory please visit
New South Wales
Department of Primary Industries
Victoria
Department for Energy, Environment and Climate Action
Queensland
Queensland Government -Feral fallow deer
Queensland Government – Feral chital deer
Queensland Government – Feral red deer
Queensland Government – Feral rusa deer
Queensland Government – Sambar deer
Queensland Government – Hog deer
South Australia
Department of Primary Industries and Regions
Tasmania
Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service
Department of Natural Resources and Environment
Western Australia
Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development
Northern Territory