TasFarmers Matters - Good fences make good neighbours

Primary Industries and Water Minister Gavin Pearce has announced the opening of consultation around the development of the next state management plan for feral deer.

This announcement comes at a critical time for the state’s primary producers, who every day feel the cost pressures associated with Tasmania’s invasive deer populations to their bottom line. 

It is important through this consultation that the important role recreational hunters play in managing deer numbers be recognised and appreciated.

However, as a recent member put it succinctly, “recreational  deer hunting is not putting the downward pressure on the population expected by the current plan, with the population continuing to increase. We need a new approach.”

Over the past 12 months TasFarmers has raised that many primary producers feel like we are reaching a tipping point for the population where, like other feral introduced species, deer population risks reaching a point where it will be impossible to get back into control.

As a starting point, TasFarmers puts forward that deer in Tasmania must be classified as feral. The population’s partially protected status must be removed, and the owners of the deer (the crown) must take active responsibility of managing their animals and helping ensure that they do not cause financial harm to private landowners.

A deer farmer in Tasmania is required to hold a mandatory licence and must operate their business in a way which prevents the operation from posing a threat to the environment, community and neighbouring properties.

This includes fencing which is agency approved by the state government before stocking of the farm to prevent escapes. 

What frustrates non-deer farmers, however, is that the same obligation does not apply to the government in preventing its population of an estimated 86,000 feral deer across the state from entering private farmers properties, causing an estimated damage bill of $56m per year.

With a price tag like this, primary producers are quite right in their regular feedback TasFarmers that the new plan must either fund a rapid reduction in feral deer numbers, compensate primary producers for the losses they are incurring or provide financial support to producers to enable them to fence the government’s deer population off of their private property.

The current approach must be recognised as not meeting its intended purpose. The time has come for a new approach and the establishment of a feral deer removal plan which includes approaches to compensate those wearing the cost of the current plan’s failures.