11 February 2022
A planned deer control project in Victoria’s Baw Baw National Park in March lacks a clear understanding of what problem the land manager is trying to solve, let alone any monitoring or design work that would ensure that the project is effective and that it achieves the ultimate goal of protecting biodiversity.
Key Points:
Fundamentally, if you are designing a deer control program, you need to have a clear understanding of:
What is the impact that you are trying to address? (i.e. damage to an environmental asset)
What is the relationship between the deer and the impact (how much impact does a single deer have, and what impact? Is a particular species, gender or age class impacting more heavily?)
How many target deer are in the area?
You can then determine how many deer you need to remove to be successful. The goal must be to improve biodiversity in a tangible, practical and measurable way, not just to achieve some rhetorical or ideological victory.
What we all too often see are plans to ‘shoot every deer you see’ and post control reports of gross numbers killed or some other spurious metric like minutes per kill. Without understanding what you are trying to protect and what you need to do to protect it, all of this is just meaningless window dressing that, sadly, fools most of the people, most of the time.
A generic media release from Parks Victoria on Thursday 10 February raised alarm bells with its use of very generalised ‘justifications’ for the project and some, frankly, laughable claims such as
“A recent study by Davies et al. 2020 used a camera array to confirm anecdotal information that Sambar deer are present in Baw Baw National Park.”
The study referred to is a good piece of work that we have reported on previously. The notion that the public land manager could not confirm until eighteen months ago that sambar are present in the Baw Baw National Park is either very concerning or very amusing. The area that is now the Baw Baw National Park has been an important area for sambar hunting since at least the late 1940s. Access was lost when the park was declared in 1979 but regained decades later following consistent campaigning from the ADA and others. We have known that there are sambar there for at least three-quarters of a century.
In November last year, it was flagged with us that a deer control project was being looked at in the Baw Baw National Park. It was not until yesterday that we received the ‘details’ (such as they are), which included areas open to recreational hunting in the proposed treatment area. We do not automatically oppose targeted deer control in areas that are open to recreational hunting, nor do we posit that recreational hunting is a panacea for managing the negative impacts of wild deer. We say that all deer control, but particularly deer control in areas that are open to recreational hunting, needs to be well justified and subject to robust monitoring and genuine consultation and transparency. This project misses the mark on all of those measures. It is some small consolation that, in this instance, a relatively small area open to recreational hunting will be impacted for a relatively short time.
Yesterday we asked Parks Victoria for some more details about this program. The Sporting Shooters Association of Australia (Vic) made a similar request. We are pleased that Parks Victoria responded swiftly. However, we are disappointed that the responses, in our view, only highlight how lacking this project is in rigour and value.
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Our request |
Details of the monitoring programs in place on impacted assets |
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Parks Victoria’s Response |
Sambar deer impacts on alpine peatlands are thoroughly substantiated and our intention is to mitigate those impacts given Parks Victoria’s obligations to protect them under State and Commonwealth legislation. We will use ArcGIS Collector app to monitor and record deer presence and numbers during the five nights of control. This data can be modelled over time to understand deer density. |
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Our comments |
Our question related to the specific assets in the planned treatment area, not to the class of assets generally. What is essential in asset-based control is understanding the actual negative impacts on the real assets you are trying to protect – it’s pointless otherwise and impossible to measure success (or failure). The notion that you would begin to collect data to understand population density by subjecting the population to harvest and disturbance is ridiculous. It tells us that there is not and will not be a valid baseline to work off. |
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Our request |
A summary of the causes of the impacts |
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Parks Victoria’s Response |
Sambar deer impacts on alpine peatlands include wallowing, browsing, thrashing and trampling resulting in bare earth trails. The recent paper, Detectability and activity patterns of sambar deer (Rusa unicolor) in Baw Baw National Park, Victoria by Davies et al., 2020 has highlighted Sambar deer presence within Baw Baw NP and we have used this peer reviewed scientific paper to inform our project. Noting that a recommendation of the paper is the delivery of control operations in the Park to reduce sambar deer numbers and mitigate associated ecological impacts. |
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Our comments |
Again, our question related to the specific assets in the planned treatment area, not to the generally known impacts of wild deer. The mere presence of sambar is not, in and of itself, an impact that warrants the expenditure of finite resources. Using the recommendations from published literature as justification is not a proxy for adequately understanding and planning a control program. The notion that the land manager has only recently become fully aware of the presence of sambar in the area is absurd. |
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Our request |
The pre-control population density of wild deer in the treatment area |
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Parks Victoria’s Response |
Population density is unknown and an objective of this project is to better understand this metric. As mentioned above the use of ArcGIS Collector app will enable us to model data over time to better understand deer density. |
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Our comments |
If you do not understand the population density and how that relates to the impacts you seek to mitigate, you have no way of knowing how many deer you need to remove to expect a result. This heightens the risk of the project being futile. |
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Our request |
A target for the number of wild deer to be removed in order to address impacts (the proposed post control density) |
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Parks Victoria’s Response |
All deer observed on the plateau will be controlled where it safe and humane to do so during five nights of activity with two contract staff in early March. Given pre-control density is unknown, the proposed post control density cannot be estimated. The primary objectives of the project are to ascertain if sambar can be effectively controlled using ground shooting in this environment and to mitigate impacts on alpine peatlands within the confines of the current project scope. |
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Our comments |
Refer to our comments about understanding density and the density-impact relationship above. Thursday’s media release stated that: The Alpine National Park Deer Control Trial (which concluded in 2020) has shown ground shooting using contractors is an efficient and effective approach for controlling deer in the alpine environment. That would seem to contradict Friday’s statement that: The primary objectives of the project are to ascertain if sambar can be effectively controlled using ground shooting in this environment and to mitigate impacts on alpine peatlands within the confines of the current project scope. |
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Our request |
An indication of whether or not there is sufficient budget allocated to this exercise to achieve a realistic and tangible result |
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Parks Victoria’s Response |
This project is the first step to ascertain if ground shooting is feasible in Baw Baw NP and we are confident that the scope of the project will enable us to understand this. The results will inform the need and requirements for an ongoing program within the Park. |
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Our comments |
Based on the evident lack of planning and monitoring in place, we can have no confidence that results will properly inform much at all. |
We do value our relationship with Parks Victoria, which is overwhelmingly positive. That does not mean that we will agree all of the time or that when we disagree, we will not properly inform hunters and the broader community about what our concerns are and why.
Ultimately, we want to see robust, evidence-based management of wild deer in the Australian landscape. There are finite resources available to make that happen, and it is incumbent on us to do what we can to ensure that they are directed where they will serve the greatest good.
Our public land managers need to embrace the nuances of wild deer management, properly understand and respect the role and multi-faceted interests of licenced deer hunters and be truly transparent about their operations. We will continue to work closely and productively with our colleagues like the SSAA Vic and with land managers when and where we can to further those goals.
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