Feral deer targeted in the Port Stephens area

01 Jan 2019

Feral deer have been a concern in the Port Stephens area for many years and, as the region continues to develop, the negative impacts of feral deer have increased.

Hunter Regional Pest Animal Committee have been helping coordinate a control program in the Ferodale and the Greater Raymond Terrace areas to reduce the significant impacts from feral deer.

Brett Miners, chair of the Hunter Regional Pest Animal Committee, said, “Control of feral deer is a priority under the Hunter Regional Strategic Pest Animal Management Plan, especially where they pose a risk to the safety of motorists and motorcyclists on our local roads.”

Deer are not native animals to Australia - they were introduced in the 19th Century and farmed through the state - there are now four species of feral deer in the Hunter.

Some of the impacts greatest concerns being reported by residents in the region include:

• Threat to human life through road collisions.
• Economic impact to road users through damage to cars and insurance providers through insurance claims.
• Increase in mental health strain on landholders dealing with impacts on their land as well as, mental health impacts to local landholders who regularly respond to vehicle collisions.
• Impact on local producers through damage and grazing of crops and pasture, reducing yields of crops and reducing available feed for stock.
• Damage to fencing of production land increasing maintenance cost for landholders and adding a safety risk to the road reserves if cattle or other stock gain access through broken fences. Additionally impacts to fences of non-production lands is increasing property maintenance cost to landholders.
• Damage to native vegetation. This area has conservation and forestry land along with private landholders with environmental assets.
• Damage to revegetation works being undertaken to improve natural environment including a koala habit restoration project. This adds both economic and continued environmental impacts.

A recent control program in the Raymond Terrace area was successfully able to remove 48 feral deer from across private and publicly managed lands. The program was undertaken primarily utilising professional feral animal controllers working across public and private lands where feral deer were known to be creating high risks.

Brett continued, “The Regional Pest Animal Committee is pleased to see completion of a successful control program in the Raymond Terrace area. There will need to be follow up control programs however the removal of 48 feral deer is a good start in reducing the risks posed by feral deer to local road users and to surrounding landholders.”

The program was enabled through strong collaboration between Hunter Local Land Services, National Parks and Wildlife Service, Port Stephens Council and a range of other public and private land managers.