From the Chair

Autumn is probably my favourite time of the year. The fallow and the reds have their ruts, April is hog deer season and the cooler weather also signals that it’s time to get serious about sambar.

Over Easter we have a family friend camping with us who is an adult onset hunter; she’s been successful on a few deer but hasn’t hunted fallow in the rut yet. If she thought she was hooked now, wait until she experiences that.

After spending last Easter locked up at home it will be great to have an extended break and hunt and fish with family and friends in the high country.

Later in April I will be hunting hog deer on Sunday Island. 'The Island' is really a shining example of what like-minded people can do by working together. The hog deer there are intensively managed to keep everything in balance and my goal this year is to take a hind for the pot and contribute in some small way to the overall health of the herd.

At a board level, by the time you have read this we will finally have held our 2020 annual general meeting, after the year that wasn’t.

At the AGM Brian Boyle will be leaving the board. Brian has played a key role on the ADA board in deer management and in the development of our Strategic Plan. His role with fisheries in the Northern Territory takes him away from home (and from communication with the outside world) for long periods of time. Brian continues in a leadership role in deer management and as a writer with Australian Deer Magazine. 

Joining the board will be Dr Tim Nevard and Mr David Pope.

Tim has a PhD in ecology and evolutionary genetics and was a founding director of the RPS Group. Although now largely retired from the corporate world, he has committed his working life to sustainable business and nature conservation, for which he was awarded the Order of Australia and Centenary of Federation medals. Tim and his family have a longstanding involvement with deer in Australia and overseas, and are keen to help ADA build high quality research partnerships, establishing a balanced picture of the role of deer in Australia’s natural and farmed environments. He lives on a farm in far north Queensland. 

David has spent the past 25 years as a board member and director of a number of Australian defence and global infrastructure organisations. He left the corporate world a few years ago and today owns and runs two family businesses in the Barossa Valley and spends as much time as possible bowhunting with his son, Kobi. 

I am really excited about the direction we are heading in and the contribution that the incoming board can make to sustainable hunting and wild deer management in Australia.

Contributed by Col Brumley.