Feral deer in Tasmania

Our work   |  Feral animals  |  Deer

Tasmania and Victoria remain the last two states in Australia that continue to treat deer as a hunting resource instead of managing them as the pest species they have become.

Feral deer destroy native vegetation, trample plants and ring-bark young trees. They foul waterholes, cause soil erosion, spread weeds and increase the potential for transmitting diseases such as foot-and-mouth disease.

Tasmania’s population of fallow deer has more than tripled since the 1970s and by 2023 is likely to increase by about 40%. It has been estimated that by mid-century the population could exceed one million.

In 2020 the Tasmanian Government released the results of an aerial survey of deer across the introduced animal’s core range within the state. The results put the number of feral deer in this area alone at 54,000 – the survey didn’t cover the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, northwest of the state or down south and on Bruny Island. All areas known to have feral deer populations.

The results suggest earlier studies warning of increasing feral deer numbers in Tasmania had underestimated the growth and spread of the total deer population.

Deer damage

Feral deer are damaging farming infrastructure and causing crop loss through browsing.

Deer populations are now threatening the world famous Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, and there are reports of them moving outside of their range and into new areas across Tasmania, including Bruny Island, the outskirts of Launceston and Hobart, Mole Creek, Deloraine and Dover.

In response, the Invasive Species Council, supported by the Bob Brown Foundation, prepared Feral Deer Control: A Strategy for Tasmania. The strategy contains 28 actions to reduce the impacts of feral deer on environmental, social, cultural and economic values.

The Tasmanian Government released a new ‘Wild Fallow Deer Management Plan’ in November 2021. In our submission to the draft plan we are urging the government to ensure that:

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Impacts of deer on the environment

Impacts on Tasmanian wildlife

Fallow deer can harm habitat for many native Tasmanian species.

Susceptible Tasmanian native species

There are also listed threatened plants, threatened invertebrates and threatened vegetation communities that may be threatened by trampling and grazing by fallow deer.

Source: Jensz, K. and Finley, L. (2013) Species profile for the Fallow Deer, Dama dama. Latitude 42 Environmental Consultants Pty Ltd. Hobart, Tasmania.

Impacts on landscape restoration

Greening Australia estimates that 30 per cent of its $6 million budget for the Midlands Restoration Program was spent on deer control and mitigation from deer rubbing and ringbarking trees, deer proof fencing, deer damage costs and deer monitoring.

Environmental impacts

The federal government has identified that feral deer have major impacts on the natural environment:

In 2016 the Tasmanian Legislative Council held an inquiry into Wild Fallow Deer in that state with particular reference to:

The inquiry found:

More info


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Join our Tassie deer citizen science project

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Learn more about Victoria’s feral deer problem

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Topics:deer, feral animals, invasive invertebrates, widespread invasive species
Tags:deer, feral deer, Tasmania

Dear Project Team,

[YOUR PERSONALISED MESSAGE WILL APPEAR HERE.] 

I support the amendment to the Kosciuszko National Park Wild Horse Heritage Management Plan to allow our incredible National Parks staff to use aerial shooting as one method to rapidly reduce feral horse numbers. I want to see feral horse numbers urgently reduced in order to save the national park and our native wildlife that live there.

The current approach is not solving the problem. Feral horse numbers have rapidly increased in Kosciuszko National Park to around 18,000, a 30% jump in just the past 2 years. With the population so high, thousands of feral horses need to be removed annually to reduce numbers and stop our National Park becoming a horse paddock. Aerial shooting, undertaken humanely and safely by professionals using standard protocols, is the only way this can happen.

The government’s own management plan for feral horses states that ‘if undertaken in accordance with best practice, aerial shooting can have the lowest negative animal welfare impacts of all lethal control methods’.

This humane and effective practice is already used across Australia to manage hundreds of thousands of feral animals like horses, deer, pigs, and goats.

Trapping and rehoming of feral horses has been used in Kosciuszko National Park for well over a decade but has consistently failed to reduce the population, has delayed meaningful action and is expensive. There are too many feral horses in the Alps and not enough demand for rehoming for it to be relied upon for the reduction of the population.

Fertility control as a management tool is only effective for a small, geographically isolated, and accessible population of feral horses where the management outcome sought is to maintain the population at its current size. It is not a viable option to reduce the large and growing feral horse population in the vast and rugged terrain of Kosciuszko National Park.

Feral horses are trashing and trampling our sensitive alpine ecosystems and streams, causing the decline and extinction of native animals. The federal government’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee has stated that feral horses ‘may be the crucial factor that causes final extinction’ for 12 alpine species.

I recognise the sad reality that urgent and humane measures are necessary to urgently remove the horses or they will destroy the Snowies and the native wildlife that call the mountains home. I support a healthy national park where native species like the Corroboree Frog and Mountain Pygmy Possum can thrive.

Kind regards,
[Your name]
[Your email address]
[Your postcode]


Dear Project Team,

[YOUR PERSONALISED MESSAGE WILL APPEAR HERE.] 

I support the amendment to the Kosciuszko National Park Wild Horse Heritage Management Plan to allow our incredible National Parks staff to use aerial shooting as one method to rapidly reduce feral horse numbers. I want to see feral horse numbers urgently reduced in order to save the national park and our native wildlife that live there.

The current approach is not solving the problem. Feral horse numbers have rapidly increased in Kosciuszko National Park to around 18,000, a 30% jump in just the past 2 years. With the population so high, thousands of feral horses need to be removed annually to reduce numbers and stop our National Park becoming a horse paddock. Aerial shooting, undertaken humanely and safely by professionals using standard protocols, is the only way this can happen.

The government’s own management plan for feral horses states that ‘if undertaken in accordance with best practice, aerial shooting can have the lowest negative animal welfare impacts of all lethal control methods’.

This humane and effective practice is already used across Australia to manage hundreds of thousands of feral animals like horses, deer, pigs, and goats.

Trapping and rehoming of feral horses has been used in Kosciuszko National Park for well over a decade but has consistently failed to reduce the population, has delayed meaningful action and is expensive. There are too many feral horses in the Alps and not enough demand for rehoming for it to be relied upon for the reduction of the population.

Fertility control as a management tool is only effective for a small, geographically isolated, and accessible population of feral horses where the management outcome sought is to maintain the population at its current size. It is not a viable option to reduce the large and growing feral horse population in the vast and rugged terrain of Kosciuszko National Park.

Feral horses are trashing and trampling our sensitive alpine ecosystems and streams, causing the decline and extinction of native animals. The federal government’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee has stated that feral horses ‘may be the crucial factor that causes final extinction’ for 12 alpine species.

I recognise the sad reality that urgent and humane measures are necessary to urgently remove the horses or they will destroy the Snowies and the native wildlife that call the mountains home. I support a healthy national park where native species like the Corroboree Frog and Mountain Pygmy Possum can thrive.

Kind regards,
[Your name]
[Your email address]
[Your postcode]