Photo © DNR 34 | WILDLIFE Australia Magazine | Winter 2009 Photo © DNR 334-37.indd4-37.indd 3344 224/6/094/6/09 111:57:591:57:59 AAMM B Y D R C A R O L B O O T H Oh deer: ‘conservation hunting’ in Australia Is licensed recreational hunting of feral animals an effective way to reduce their impact? It may look good at first glance, but further investigation reveals many flaws. nnouncing the start of the Sounds good; looks bad deer hunting season in On the surface his assertion seems AMarch 2009, the New South reasonable. Hunters kill feral animals. Wales Game Council’s large, full- You would expect this would lead to colour newspaper ads carried the less environmental damage. In its latest tagline ‘Hunters – First annual report (June 2008) the NSW Game in Conservation’. Council said hunters (about 9000 have ‘Voluntary Conservation Hunting’ been licensed) had conducted ‘important is a new guise for recreational environmental work’ in killing 4076 hunting, used recently to justify rabbits, 1081 pigs, 1037 goats, 724 foxes, granting hunters access to vast areas 410 deer, 242 hares, 136 cats and 55 dogs of public lands, including national in state forests that year. parks, in eastern Australia. ‘As each fox kills about 26 native birds In Victoria earlier this year, the every year, that means there are 20,000 Brumby government announced it more native birds alive in our state would allow recreational hunting forests including honeyeaters, parrots, in the newly created River Red kites, and magpies,’ claims the March Gum National Parks. No public 2008 newsletter of the NSW Sporting debate was invited on this major Shooters Association. shift in the national park ethos. But there are major flaws in this simplistic Photo courtesy Rohan Bilney The government also proposes a ‘a dead pest is one less pest’ logic. program to subsidise the hunting First, it fails to account for the prodigious capacity of feral of deer and native birds on private properties. animals to quickly replace those killed. Worse than this In NSW, despite strong protest from conservation, animal ineffectiveness is the risk that more widespread recreational welfare and community groups, the state government hunting will exacerbate feral animal problems as hunters seek has granted hunters access to more than two million to maximise hunting opportunities. hectares of state forests since 2006. More than $6.4 million There are also other well-known risks – impacts on native in government funding has gone to the NSW Game Council wildlife, compromised animal welfare, human safety and in the past two years to manage and promote human enjoyment of public lands – but the focus here is recreational hunting. impacts on feral animal control. The governments claim these moves will benefit the environment, with NSW Primary Industries Minister Ian Adding up the numbers MacDonald telling parliament that recreational hunting Population reduction is difficult to achieve because animals was a ‘sensible option’ to ‘help to eradicate feral animals’. that are killed are often replaced by those that otherwise Above left: Fallow deer (Dama dama), widespread in south-eastern Australia, have escaped from deer farms and been illegally released. Protected as a hunting resource in Victoria, NSW and Tasmania, they are a declared pest species in Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia. Below left: As shown in this failed gap regeneration site in Victoria due to damage by sambar deer, Littoral Rainforest and Coastal Vine Thickets of Eastern Australia, listed as a critically endangered ecological communities under the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, are threatened by feral deer impacts. Above: Sambar browsing has damaged muttonwood (Rapanea howittiana) in the Mitchell River National Park. www.wildlife-australia.org | WILDLIFE Australia Magazine | 35 334-37.indd4-37.indd 3355 224/6/094/6/09 111:58:011:58:01 AAMM would not have survived. For some feral animals, half or more of the population must be culled annually just to maintain the status quo. That’s why virtually every bounty scheme in Australia and overseas has failed. They typically reduce pest numbers by no more than 2–10 percent. The 724 foxes killed by hunters in NSW state forests in 2007/08 would probably not amount to even 1 percent of the targeted populations. As NSW Primary Industries Minister Ian MacDonald told parliament, the estimated fox population in Australia exceeds 7 million. Because there is a large ‘doomed Photo courtesy Zoe Phillips, The Weekly Times surplus’ of young foxes, biologists estimate that more than 65 percent need to be killed annually to reduce a population. This estimate for Victoria, which informed the government’s assessment of the Victorian fox bounty by Marks and Fairbridge 2005, would likely also apply for NSW. Victoria had a fox bounty in 2002-03 that resulted in 170,000 dead foxes. It was abandoned because it didn’t work. The government review found the bounty made a difference in only about 4 percent of the state, where hunting access was easy. How the problem can spread The greatest concern about these programs is that maverick hunters have been establishing many new populations of feral animals to create more prey. By opening up vast areas of Photo © Tim Low public land to recreational hunting, governments are creating Above: Rusa deer have defoliated this sandpaper fig (Ficus coronata) incentives for hunters to spread feral animals even further. in Royal National Park. Top: Although recreational hunters target feral Deer are probably the worst emerging feral animal threat in foxes, the state of Victoria has found bounty programs ineffective eastern Australia, and hunters in controlling fox numbers. Below left: Feral deer are, indeed, here. Minister for Primary Industries, Fisheries and Rural and Regional are responsible for the majority Queensland Tim Mulherin notes that, ‘... the greatest threat to our of new populations. Of the 218 sensitive Queensland environment is the possibility of sambar, hog wild herds recorded in Australia deer, and other tropical deer species being released in the Wet Tropics.’ in a 2000 survey, an estimated 58 percent came from deliberate releases, mostly within the By creating a stronger financial and political basis for the previous few years (35 percent hunting lobby, the commercialisation of recreational hunting were from deer farm escapes also makes it logistically and politically harder to eliminate or releases). feral animal populations for conservation purposes. A NSW government survey Recreational hunting groups claim to be motivated for recorded another 30 deer conservation, but they have strongly opposed important populations between 2002 and 2004. In NSW national parks conservation measures. They campaigned against the and state forests, deer have been found with ear tags from declaration of the River Red Gum National Parks in Victoria, farms far away, suggesting deliberate introduction. where they will now be allowed to hunt, and against the In southwest Western Australia, where feral pig numbers are declaration of deer as threatening processes in NSW increasing and populations are appearing in new areas, a and Victoria. genetics study indicated that movement by people had a lot The Australian Deer Association took the Victorian to do with new pig invasions. The researchers concluded that government to court to try to stop the declaration of feral pigs were being ‘deliberately and illegally translocated sambar, an introduced deer native to Asia, as a threat to to supplement recreational hunting stocks’. biodiversity under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act. The Conservation or commercial? association’s vision is for deer to be managed as a ‘valuable public resource’, and ‘for the benefit of the deer themselves’. Promoting hunting on private lands for reward, as the Victorian Because of hunter influence, deer are fully or partially Government proposes for deer, also encourages the deliberate protected in Victoria, NSW and Tasmania. increase and spread of feral animals. Under the scheme landholders would receive direct or in-kind payments from Allowing recreational hunting on public lands for feral animal hunters, and access to government incentives and subsidies control provides state governments with an excuse not to to improve habitat and hunting conditions. In one of the undertake proper control. worst examples of environmental vandalism, buffalo, deer Other collateral damage from recreational hunting includes and blackbuck antelope were recently freed by two hunting the escape of hunting dogs, and shooting and disturbance enterprises on unfenced land on Cape York Peninsula. of native animals. (See ‘The damage deer do’, p 37.) 36 | WILDLIFE Australia Magazine | Winter 2009 334-37.indd4-37.indd 3366 224/6/094/6/09 111:58:011:58:01 AAMM BY OPENING UP VAST AREAS OF PUBLIC LAND TO RECREATIONAL HUNTING, GOVERNMENTS ARE CREATING INCENTIVES FOR HUNTERS TO SPREAD FERAL ANIMALS EVEN FURTHER. Photo courtesy Rohan Bilney Sambar deer have browsed heavily on muttonwood in Mitchell River National A different approach Park dry rainforest. Because feral animal control is difficult and costly, pest experts have recommended it be undertaken as part of carefully planned programs, with clear, realistic goals set in The damage deer do terms of biodiversity benefits (not numbers of pests killed), using effective and humane The introduction to feral deer in The Mammals of Australia, methods, and with monitoring. For most feral 3rd edition (2008) warns that they ‘could be on their way to species, ground shooting is not considered becoming Australia’s next major pest’. very effective, and recommended only as In recognition of the harm they can cause, feral deer have a supplement to other methods, when recently been listed as threatening processes in NSW conducted by expert shooters. (specifically the herbivory and degradation caused by five feral In a South Australian reserve in 2002, 65 species) and Victoria (specifically the impact of sambar on the recreational hunters shot 44 deer in four biodiversity of native vegetation).