Bob Brown’s deer report an 'absurd and alarmist attempt' to bully the Government

Wednesday 11 August 2021

The Bob Brown Foundation (BBF) has today released a report it prepared with its partners at the Invasive Species Council (ISC) purporting to be a “Feral (sic) deer strategy for Tasmania”. It is a viable strategy for Tasmania in the same way that Star Wars is an accurate documentary about the 1969 moon landing.

The ISC and Bob Brown’s Greens have a close alliance, sharing a premises in Melbourne and collaborating on a number of campaigns that push Greens ideology over evidence-based management.

Speaking in Hobart on the launch of the document, former Greens Senator Christine Milne said “Fallow deer were introduced to Tasmania in the 1830s and by the 1970s numbered 7,000-8,000. But that figure is now close to 100,000 and set to number a million covering 54% of the state by 2050 unless radical action is taken”. In response the Australian Deer Association’s Tasmanian Co-Ordinator, Scott Freeman, described Ms Milne’s statement as “absurd and alarmist”. “A report released just last year put the Tasmanian fallow deer population at 53,660 with a net growth rate of just 5.4% per year” Mr Freeman said “you can’t simply double the scientifically determined figures because it suits your narrative”.

In response to the ADA's criticisms, Milne and the BBF doubled down on the anti-hunter rhetoric. “Just because the Tasmanian government wants to pretend we remain a far-flung outpost of the Empire and copy the recreational trophy hunting habits of the 19th-century British aristocracy doesn’t mean we should sacrifice our environment and farming community,” Ms Milne said. Going even further, the BBF Media Manager Adam Burling described hunters as "Dressing up on weekends, hiding in the bush and trying to see who can kill deer with the biggest antlers" and as "the weird people who have some sort of self-interested deer fetish". These are not the statements or comments you would typically associate with a group that is pure of intent and at all interested in genuine collaboration across the community.  

Along with the hunting community, Tasmania’s peak farming body was not consulted in the development of the ISC/Greens report. Whilst acknowledging that the impacts of deer on agriculture are an issue, John McKew, the CEO of the Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Association put it into some context. “A recent survey of 240 TFGA members revealed that deer are number six wildlife pest problem for Tasmanian pastoralists” Mr McKew said “this puts deer behind the different species of wallabies, possums, cockatoos and feral cats”. Mr McKew re-iterated the TFGA’s commitment to working proactively and collaboratively with other sensible stakeholders.     

The ISC/Greens report is a substantial (in length at least) document that lays out some useful points and proposals for wild deer management in Tasmania, particularly with regards to proactively preventing the spread of wild deer populations. Unfortunately, it is let down by the ideological leanings which have underpinned it and the flawed assumptions that appear to have flowed from them.

For example, the introductory paragraph of the Executive Summary of this report quotes an annual growth rate of 11.5% which is more than double the actual net growth rate of 5.4% (as reported by Lethbridge et al just last year). It also exaggerates (albeit this time only by around 5%) the extent of the distribution of wild fallow deer beyond that reported by Lethbridge with no obvious rationale (other than puffery) for doing so.

The summary is littered with hyperbolic and alarmist language, exaggerations and, in parts, just plain fanciful claims.

The document erroneously uses the term ‘feral’ as a descriptor for wild deer a staggering four hundred and thirty-three times.

The document, being predicated on critically flawed assertions about wild deer, unsurprisingly draws flawed conclusions and arrives at unrealistic recommendations. As we have come to expect from the ISC and their partners it also misrepresents and mischaracterises game hunters and game licencing and seemingly seeks to downplay our role and interests in wild deer management. By misdiagnosing game licencing as the dominant factor in wild deer expansion the ISC/Greens report, if taken at all seriously, would set the Tasmanian Government on a path that would ignore root causes (such as changed agricultural practices and the expansion of irrigation schemes) and disenfranchise and divide a large group of stakeholders for no conceivable ecological or political gain. The settings in the Wildlife Regulations would have only a peripheral (if any) impact on any government-led deer control on public land outside of the 'traditional' range. The document itself makes only passing reference to 'constraints' of the Wildlife Regulations, but, in both the Executive Summary and subsequent commentary these settings are, incredibly cast as the key management priority. Ms Milne's commentary again underscored the degree to which the ISC/Greens position is rooted in ideology over evidence "we must seriously reduce deer numbers in Tasmania and eradicate them from the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage area and national parks" Ms Milne said, "removing the partial (sic) protected status of feral deer is step one".   

The current Tasmanian Government won a major election victory just over three months ago. They took to that election a clear, comprehensive, costed suite of policies including one specifically about a wild deer management plan.

“Invest $250,000 over two years to implement a new Wild Fallow Deer Management Plan for Tasmania, reinvigorate Property-based Game Management Plans, and expand deer and wildlife population monitoring.”

By contrast, Bob Brown and Christine Milne's Greens received just 12% of the vote at that election and failed to increase their representation from a meagre two out of twenty-five lower house seats.

Underscoring the partisan political underpinnings of this report, Bob Brown launched an extraordinary attack on the Tasmanian Government as a whole and Premier Gutwein in particular. "They don't have a clue on the environment," Dr Brown said, "all they're interested in is working out how to make money off it". In response, Premier Gutwein highlighted the more collaborative approach that the Tasmanian Government takes to the issue of wild deer management "our clear focus is on maintaining a sensible balance between managing the impact of wild fallow deer on our important primary industries and natural environment and maintaining a deer herd as a traditional hunting resource". 

The tone and release of this report follows a modus operandi employed by ISC/Greens in other jurisdictions where they have sought to push their ideological position to the exclusion of all other stakeholders and, in doing so, have attempted to effectively bully elected Government’s into following along.

In Victoria, for example, they had some success in doing just that by pressuring the Government to abandon the practical and workable Deer Management Strategy in favour of a largely ideologically and rhetorically based Deer Control Strategy. Ironically the zone-based approach that the ISC/Greens are proposing for Tasmania today is substantially the same approach that they campaigned against in Victoria less than a year ago. The validity of a zone-based management response is demonstrably sound, the credibility of the ISC/Greens in discussions about evidence based wild deer management is demonstrably not.

This is not simply a disagreement about rhetoric or semantics, it is about the effective management of wild deer in the Australian environment. By engaging in dismissive and exclusionary tactics and, more importantly, by peddling a predominately false narrative that game status is a salient factor in the expansion of wild deer populations, the BBF and the ISC run the very real risk of distracting our decision makers and acting as hindrance to efforts to manage wild deer in a practical sense.  

The Australian Deer Association remains committed to working with the Tasmanian Government, landholders, conservationists and industry on a deer management plan based on accurate figures and setting a realistic and workable path for wild deer management in Tasmania. We will, unapologetically call out divisive misinformation when and where we hear it, regardless of how 'powerful' the group spreading it is.