A bloody big pest

Andrew Cox warns that deer numbers are exploding across the state and could destroy Tasmania’s clean, green brand

ACROSS Tasmania small groups are gathering in civic and sports centres to talk about a growing problem that could threaten the state’s much- touted reputation as a clean, green economy.

They won’t be talking about the traditional threats to the environment, they’ll be talking about deer.

Deer were introduced to Tasmania by the British for food and sport, despite the fact the island’s wildlife sustained Tasmanian Aborigines for tens of thousands of years.

Mainland Australia is grappling with growing numbers of six deer species — fallow, chital, hog, rusa, red and sambar.

Tasmania is grappling with growing numbers of just one species, fallow, but that is more than enough.

Like so many of the hardhoofed species introduced into the Australian landscape, deer are destructive.

They destroy native vegetation by trampling and grazing plants. They ringbark trees, foul waterholes, cause soil erosion and spread weeds. Deer also hurt farmers. The Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Association recently told a special senate hearing into the impacts of fallow deer in Tasmania that the animals cost the state’s agricultural industry at least $ 10m a year and possibly as much as $ 80m a year.

And what about the threats to motorists? Hitting a large deer on the Southern Outlet or West Tamar Highway could easily be lethal.

In 2016, increasing numbers of deer caught the attention of the state’s Legislative Council. An inquiry ensued, the results were clear. Deer are spreading in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area and other sensitive conservation areas, including Bruny Island.

Earlier this year, the results of an aerial survey of deer across about a third of Tasmania were released, putting the population in the surveyed range at about 54,000, much larger than expected. The survey did not cover other areas we know suffer from deer invasion, including Bruny, the NorthWest and South near Dover.

Clearly, there are far more than 54,000 deer in Tasmania and there needs to be a rapid expansion of monitoring to measure deer numbers.

Apart from Tasmania and Victoria the rest of Australia recognises deer as a pest species and manages them to mitigate impacts on farmers and the environment.

The current management regime for deer in Tasmania could have been written a century ago. It gives this single species special protections aimed at maintaining deer herds for hunters, paying not nearly enough attention to the environmental, agricultural and economic impacts of deer.

The Tasmanian Government talks about wild deer as if deer are part of Tasmania’s wildlife pantheon. They are not. Deer are an introduced animal that while providing excellent eating also pose real threats to the natural environment and farmers.

The first step of a new deer management plan should be to call deer what they are, a pest species, so that they can be managed as such.

An effective deer management plan would reduce the damaging impacts of this animal on farmers and the environment. It would draw up containment lines to keep deer out of the World Heritage Area and other high value conservation areas and it would eradicate them from Bruny Island.

Reclassifying deer as a pest will let Tasmania reset how it manages the destructive impacts of deer. It will not reduce hunting opportunities, if anything, it will make it easier to hunt deer.

To paraphrase a proverb, the beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name. To speak more plainly, it’s time to start calling a spade a spade and a deer a pest.

Andrew Cox wrote this article in his capacity as chief executive of the Invasive Species Council. He is also Environmental Justice Australia vice chairman, 4nature president and a member of the national Environmental Biosecurity Advisory Group.