From the executive officer

It sounds trite, but being the executive officer of the Australian Deer Association really is both an honour and a privilege. Our organisation has great people, great values and a fantastic culture of sharing and inclusiveness. We truly deserve our mantle as the most effective and dynamic hunting organisation in Australia.

Along with the day-to-day work, we have been very busy in recent months addressing threats from the Invasive Species Council (ISC) and the RSPCA.

The ISC is an interesting one. It is a tiny not-for-profit that refuses to disclose its funding sources and routinely deals in misdirection and exaggeration about wild deer management in Australia.

I recently gave evidence to a Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry where my timeslot directly followed the ISC’s chief executive officer, Andrew Cox.

In my opening remarks I made the following point:

“We also have an awful lot in common with our cousins in the environment movement. We seek to work on those areas of common ground wherever we can. We do feel obliged, however, to call out misinformation when we hear it. For the most part, misinformation tends to take the form of deliberate omission rather than blatant mistruth. An example of this is in the submission to this inquiry from the Invasive Species Council, and I quote: 'All other mainland states have designated all deer as a pest species. Whilst wild deer are present throughout Australia, they have well-established populations in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. Of these five states, three — New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania — enable recreational hunting to public land and hunting through game licensing. In the two outliers, Queensland and South Australia, there is no public land access for hunters. Beyond that, land managers are totally in the dark about hunter effort, and they lack the ability to properly regulate hunting and educate hunters in those states. There is a folly in trying to seek rhetorical solutions for physical problems. Game licensing is a means of managing the hunters, not the deer. Efforts to dismantle game licensing are, logically, seen by hunters as back door efforts to dismantle public land hunting. It certainly smacks of an undisclosed agenda.”

Later in the hearing, I was able to expand on the absurdity of the statements from the ISC under questioning from MPs.

Animal Justice Party MP, Andy Meddick: "We did have the Invasive Species Council talking about — in his estimation one million — deer perhaps already out in the broader landscape and probably more than that, but there is not sufficient data to actually say that that is the case. Would you say that that is somewhat accurate? I am just seeking some broader opinions, if you like, of how you feel about some of the points he would have raised, because I know you were here for most of his presentation."

Mr Howlett: "It is quite possibly accurate, but if you are talking about management and if you are talking about addressing impacts on the environment, it is actually the wrong question to be asking. It does not matter how many deer there are in Victoria. It matters what damage deer are doing in particular places and what the density of the deer is in those places. It is great for people who seek headlines — ‘A million deer’ is a great headline — but it is completely meaningless from a management perspective."

Mr Meddick: "Thank you. That is exactly the answer I was looking for, because I was looking to see if they were concentrated in particular areas and if damage was concentrated in that respect."

Nationals MP, Melina Bath clearly picked up on the absurdity of some of the ISC's evidence: ". . . would you like to respond to the ISC? Mr Cox today has mentioned that the deer as a species should become a pest. So that is the first one: what is the ADA’s opinion on that?"

Mr Howlett: "Yes, certainly. On the pest thing, I think Mr Cox is probably about eight years late to the party in Victoria. In 2013 the Victorian Government declared wild deer unprotected on private land in Victoria, which basically addressed all of those concerns. Deer are, as Mr Cox said, protected by the Wildlife Act in Victoria. It is a 365-day-a-year open season, public land access with no bag limit, so if that is what he thinks is protection, I certainly would not want him protecting me. But it is an issue that has actually been addressed. The Invasive Species Council came out two years ago on the front page of the Daily Telegraph lauding the New South Wales Government for basically following Victoria’s lead in unprotecting deer on private land and then allowing them to be hunted under game licensing on public land, so it is a very confused position that they have put. There is no practical benefit in dismantling what we have got in Victoria now."

These people are well resourced, have a sympathetic media and don’t see truth as an impediment — we need to be vigilant in countering their misleading drivel.

Contributed by Barry Howlett.