Feral Deer Management

Land management agencies in the Wet Tropics bioregion are concerned about future impacts of feral deer if their spread is left unchecked.

Feral deer are potential disease and parasite carriers, and pose an ecological threat to the internationally recognized biodiversity values of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area. Feral deer also pose a threat to cane growers, horticulturists and grazing enterprises. Currently there are only a small number of discrete breeding populations scattered across the bioregion but they are not well established and probably have not achieved their full population potential. Research has found these deer are capable of breeding rapidly to form large herds that could cause significant, and possibly irreversible environmental damage.

The regional project is a proactive and cooperative approach to testing feral deer control techniques within the Wet Tropics bioregion. Results will be shared with all land managers through the Feral Deer Working Group (as part of the Cairns Regional Council Pest Management Working group), FNQ Pest Advisory Forums and field days. The project will try to determine effective control techniques, and clarify suitable legislative guidelines required to achieve eradication or long term localised control. It is hoped proven control techniques will enable future eradication / long term control of feral deer as required through the Wet Tropics.

Specific aims of the project are to:

• Identify roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders:
• Identify techniques and purchase tools suitable for feral deer capture and euthanizing;
• Investigate and implement different monitoring techniques to quantify the success of control efforts;
• Establish a network of community contacts to support deer management decision making;
• Identify contractors to test on-ground control techniques;
• Support and increase the capacity of Biosecurity Queensland’s Land Protection Officers, Local Government Officers and other government agencies responsible for land management (e.g. QPW) to utilise the techniques for feral deer control;
• Incorporate all results into extension information and final report case study;
• Contribute information to develop a best practice model applicable to wet tropics feral deer control.