Victoria’s Game Management Authority has today released the harvest report for recreational deer hunting in 2019.

The report estimates that Victorian recreational hunters killed just under 175,000 wild deer last year, most of them sambar, most of them female. Unfortunately the numbers for this year will be considerably lower, owing both to bushfire and COVID 19.

The report highlights the continued growth of recreational deer hunting in Victoria. The number of deer killed increased by 43% on the previous years, the number of deer hunting days increased by 45%, the number of deer taken over hounds increased by 70%.

As we reported yesterday, new research shows that the rate of increase in sambar populations in Victoria is estimated at 15% per annum. If you accept the common estimate of “a million deer” that would require a harvest of 150,000 deer a year to begin to curb high numbers – even if you accept the upper guestimate of one and a half million deer, the total harvest would need to be 225,000.

What today’s report lays bare is that recreational deer hunters are the dominant force in deer management in Victoria and that if you grow hunter numbers and opportunity, you grow the harvest. The newly released Victorian Deer Control Strategy really misses the mark on that score.

Recreational fishing has “target one million” – if the Victorian Government really want to curb deer numbers we need to:

• Recruit around 10,000 more recreational hunters (that’s about two years of growth at the current rate)
• Open more public land up for hunting (particularly hound hunting – 360,000 ha was added this year which is a great start)
• Support the growth in deer hunting with more game managers and more hunter driven research

You can read the harvest report in full here.