What on earth is going on in Victoria?
Late on a Friday afternoon – while most Victorians were heading home for the weekend – the Allan Government quietly slipped out its long-awaited response to the Wildlife Act review.
Hidden in that announcement was a decision so baffling it borders on unbelievable: feral deer – one of the most destructive pest animals in Australia – will stay protected as “wildlife” under Victorian law.
Let that sink in. The animals tearing through our national parks, wrecking farms, polluting water catchments and causing thousands of road accidents every year are still officially treated like protected native wildlife.
It’s ludicrous. And a slap in the face to every farmer, motorist and park ranger who’s seen the damage first-hand. And if you own a car, you are seeing the impact of deer in higher insurance costs.
Deer numbers are exploding across Victoria and spreading westward into more areas. The state has the largest population in the country, yet the government insists their protection is “not a barrier to control”. If that’s true, why are they spreading from the High Country to the suburbs?
The government’s own expert panel recommended the status be changed so that landholders would have a clear legal responsibility to control deer and eradicate them where possible.
But the hunting lobby mobilised and stopped this change – not because it will have any impact on hunting opportunities – but because it will make effective control more difficult. Their interest is in ensuring deer spread for their sport, not in getting rid of them.
Hunting does have a place – but it’s not a solution. And the longer we pretend it is, the more time and money we waste that should be going to effective, targeted, professional feral animal control.
The whole point of the Wildlife Act review was to modernise outdated laws and reflect community values. Unfortunately, the government has chosen politics over proof, protecting vested interests instead of our native wildlife. The hunting lobby is calling the shots and our native wildlife, gardeners, motorists and farmers have to cop the consequences.
So now, while every other mainland state has declared deer a pest – and some, like South Australia, are backing that up with ambitious eradication programs – Victoria remains the only one still giving them legal protection.
Our laws are stuck in the past. Victoria’s own Deer Control Strategy says recreational hunting doesn’t control feral deer. The National Feral Deer Action Plan says the same thing. Every expert says so. Yet the government keeps looking the other way.
Meanwhile, landholders trying to defend their properties are tangled in red tape, forced to apply for permits just to remove deer destroying their crops and fences.
It’s not just bad policy – it’s bad politics. The government is punishing the very people it should be backing: the communities on the front line watching their landscapes, livelihoods and local roads get torn apart.
The fix is simple. Stop protecting feral deer. Remove them from the Wildlife Act, declare them a pest under the Catchment and Land Protection Act, fund more coordinated, professional control programs across public and private land and enforce landholder participation.
This isn’t about being anti-hunting – it’s about being pro-logic. You can’t declare deer as wildlife and spend millions trying to destroy them at the same time.
The government can keep protecting deer – or protect Victoria. It can’t do both.
Jack Gough, CEO, Invasive Species Council
Photo credit: Steve Morvell.
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