The 2024 Victorian Deer Harvest Estimates Report, published by the Arthur Rylah Institute for Environmental Research for the Game Management Authority (GMA), provides the most comprehensive insight yet into the scale, spread, and contribution of recreational deer hunting in Victoria.
Licensed hunters harvested an estimated 167,600 wild deer across Victoria in 2024, an increase of 22 per cent on the 2023 total of 137,100, and 83 per cent higher than the long-term average recorded since annual surveys began in 2009.
The data confirms not only the strength and maturity of Victoria’s deer hunting community, but also the critical role that recreational hunters play in managing wild deer populations across both private and public land.
Since 2009, the GMA has commissioned structured surveys of licensed hunters, providing a consistent and statistically reliable dataset. This annual monitoring has become a cornerstone of evidence-based wildlife management, offering insights into hunting participation, effort, success, and spatial distribution of harvest activity.
These surveys, conducted throughout the year, capture real-time data on hunting activity, species harvested, land tenure, and hunter demographics. The 2024 report represents 16 years of continuous monitoring—an unrivalled picture of recreational deer harvest trends.
The headline figure of 167,600 deer harvested represents the second-highest total ever recorded, just 4 per cent below the 2019 peak. Despite a 17 per cent reduction in active hunters, overall harvest rose substantially due to increased effort and improved efficiency.
On average, an active deer hunter harvested 6.4 deer across 13.5 hunting days—both figures above long-term averages. Hunters were spending more time in the bush and making their time count.
Sambar Deer (rusa unicolour) again dominated the harvest, accounting for approximately 128,000 animals or 76 per cent of the total. Fallow Deer (Dama dama) made up the second largest portion with 35,400 animals harvested, representing 21 percent of the total.
Public land hunting delivers a substantial share of the overall harvest and remains a cornerstone of Victoria’s deer management framework. Nearly half (49.5%) of all hunting days occurred exclusively on public land, with around one-third of the total harvest taken there—more than 50,000 deer.
This demonstrates the critical role of public land hunters in delivering measurable management outcomes in areas where professional control is limited. Without public land access, Victoria’s ability to manage wild deer would be severely diminished.
Hound Hunting remains one of Victoria’s most distinctive hunting traditions. The 2024 hound hunting harvest rose to 20,400 deer, up 50 per cent from 2023. Hound hunters have about 2,300 active licence holders, averaging 9.0 deer across 24 hunting days.
Long-term trends show steady growth in participation (from fewer than 20,000 licence holders in 2009 to over 52,000 in 2024), increasing efficiency, and stable harvest levels. Sambar continue to dominate the harvest, and the resilience of the hunting community has been evident through challenges such as bushfires and COVID restrictions.
Harvest distribution followed familiar patterns, with the Goulburn Broken, West Gippsland, and North East CMA regions recording the highest harvests. Towns such as Mansfield, Bairnsdale, Benalla, Yarram, and Omeo were major centres of hunting activity.
41 per cent of respondents identified as intermediate hunters, while experienced hunters were almost twice as efficient as intermediate hunters. Two-thirds of hunters were not club members, though membership correlated with higher activity and success.
The 2024 report found that 60 percent of Sambar Deer harvested were females, compared with 40 percent males. For other species, the ratios were closer to even.
This consistent and statistically significant female bias in Sambar harvest has important management implications.
From a population ecology perspective, female deer drive population growth. Each breeding-age hind can contribute one or more calves per year. Removing females therefore exerts a greater limiting effect on population growth than removing males, whose reproductive capacity is not a limiting factor in polygynous species like deer.
In simple terms, a high proportion of female harvest can help stabilise or even reduce population growth rates, particularly when applied consistently across a large area.
That trend, already evident across several years of data, suggests that recreational hunting is not only maintaining harvest pressure but doing so in a way that is biologically meaningful to population management
In practical terms, the removal of a large number of female deer means hunters are playing a measurable role in suppressing the reproductive capacity of the wild herd.
If we assume a typical annual fawning rate of around 0.8 to 1.0 calves per adult hind, the removal of over 75,000 females (60 percent of 128,000 Sambar, plus proportional numbers of other species) represents the prevention of at least 60,000 to 70,000 new deer entering the population in the following year.
That figure dwarfs the outcomes of professional culling operations and underscores the scale of contribution made by the recreational hunting community.
This natural alignment between hunter behaviour and management objectives offers a rare example of self-regulating population control, achieved without the need for costly intervention or complex regulation.
It also strengthens the argument for retaining and expanding public land hunting opportunities, where sustained harvest pressure can help keep deer populations at manageable levels in sensitive environments.
None of this data would exist without game status. Because deer are declared game species under Victoria’s Wildlife Act, management is regulated, monitored, and reported with accountability. This framework supports animal welfare standards, education, and evidence-based decision-making.
Recreational hunters are not just participants; they are active contributors to land management. They remove tens of thousands of deer annually, delivering ecological and agricultural benefits that would otherwise require immense public expenditure. Public land hunters provide coverage and persistence that government programs cannot replicate.
The 2024 report confirms that recreational hunting remains the foundation of deer management in Victoria. Hunters harvested more deer, hunted more efficiently, and delivered immense value across both private and public land.
The continuation of game status, access to public land, and robust data collection remain essential. Hunters are delivering for Victoria—for the environment, for farmers, and for the enduring tradition of sustainable deer hunting.
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