The hog deer is Australia’s least numerous deer species – in the wild they are restricted to relatively small and scattered areas of coastal Gippsland and despite a hind’s ability to produce a calf every year, numbers never seem to increase as you would expect that they should. In fact, hog deer populations in Victoria, as in their native range, could be characterised as ‘struggling’ or perhaps even ‘endangered’ in most areas despite legal hunting having been restricted to the month of April since the mid-1970s. Presumably this failure of numbers to increase means that in most of the hog deer’s Victorian range mortality has for many years pretty much matched the species’ breeding rate.
When it comes to hunting opportunity on wild hog deer, it too is severely restricted with few opportunities for the average Australian hunter. Deer numbers in most areas are low, public land areas that are open to hunting are limited, private property access is difficult to obtain and paid hunts on private land are few.
The Blond Bay/Boole Poole/Snake Island ballot is now, for most hunters, their best opportunity to gain access to hunting, especially since Snake Island has been added to the ballot. Being a lottery, however, you need to be lucky to be drawn for the limited number of hunting places available. Para Park Cooperative on Sunday Island in Corner Inlet, is family-friendly and gives the opportunity to hunt hog and fallow deer as well as being a great base from which to fish the inlet. A joining fee, management fee and an annual work commitment are required of members so membership does take commitment.
Constraints on Deer Numbers
So, if hog deer numbers aren’t rising in the small area of habitat that is still suitable for them, despite protection for 11 months of the year and a minimal annual harvest, what are the factors that are holding the population in check?
Two things are potentially to blame; either the hinds are not breeding to their potential, or the mortality rate from a variety of causes (including legal hunting) is too high, or both.
Regarding the first point, it is clear that much of the public land (and some private land too) in coastal Gippsland is pretty hungry sand country unsuitable for farming and is consequently covered in dense scrub and lacking in surface water. Other competing grazing and browsing animals (kangaroos, wallabies, wombats, rabbits, and more recently, sambar) are also competing for that limited feed and water.
A coastal soak that provides water for wildlife, including deer, but which may fail over the summer months or become very salty.
Hog deer in such areas struggle to obtain the basics for survival and are stunted when mature and often in poor condition over the summer and winter months (the deer recently culled in Wilsons Promontory National Park exemplify this). It is possible that hog deer hinds living in these circumstances don’t get in calf as yearlings, may not breed regularly and if they do, may fail to rear their calves and are more likely to die during droughts or wet cold winters. That this situation may limit hog deer numbers by reducing breeding potential and success is speculative, but we do know that in farming, overstocking and harsh conditions certainly can compromise breeding success. There is no doubt, however, that poor body condition combined with cold and wet weather can kill hog deer, an animal that evolved in a semi-tropical environment.
In some instances, conditions for hog deer can be improved on private land by providing water or by improving the availability of feed. Sunday Island is a good example of what can be done on what is in reality a pretty challenging area of private land. Manipulating the habitat on the much larger areas of public land to favour deer will be difficult if not impossible, even on state game reserves and other non-park areas. This is because it is frowned on to remove native vegetation, to spread fertilisers and trace elements, to introduce pasture species or construct watering points in such areas.
A roof, tank and trough provides high quality water to both native and introduced animals throughout the year (photo Doug Read).
With respect to the second possible constraint on hog deer numbers – excessive mortality, we can point with certainty to a number of things that kill animals besides legal hunting - poaching, road deaths, diseases and drownings for example. It is very likely that other things impact on hog deer numbers too, including legal and illegal culling by landowners and poisonings, as well as predation on calves and young animals by foxes (and wild dogs in some areas). When hog deer numbers are low, or in isolated patches of habitat, even legal hunting may limit overall numbers by removing scarce breeding hinds.
The carcasses of two hog deer stags taken illegally out of season
Unfortunately, while we suspect that many factors may be reducing hog deer breeding success or impacting on their numbers, we can’t rank these influences in order of significance, and in most instances, don’t know whether the more significant ones can be addressed to improve hunting prospects. While we can speculate on what the issues are, the only way that they can be resolved is by improved enforcement activity and by targeted research to start to tease out some of the issues. Given the financial constraints on the Game Management Authority, any research is only likely to be done if it is funded by the hunting organisations.
A hog deer hind showing signs of a lethal viral infection - blindness, incoordination and loss of body condition.
Increasing Hunting Opportunity
Every Australian deer hunter (and probably quite a few from overseas as well) would probably jump at the opportunity to hunt a free-range hog deer – they are certainly an attractive little animal, are challenging to hunt, and Gippsland is one of the few locations worldwide where hunting is available.
The area of suitable habitat available to deer is limited (around 140,000 hectares) and much of the area that carries deer is either very marginal or not available for hunting.
Although the release of hog deer at Blond Bay State Game Reserve was very successful in establishing a huntable population, it is unlikely that other similar locations exist that could also be similarly stocked – government policy is to not establish new populations outside the existing range and it is likely that stocking within the existing range would not be allowed. If we are too increase hunting opportunity, we need to look elsewhere!
Within the hog deer’s existing range there are areas that hunters can access for hog deer if they are willing to put the time in to find obliging landowners. At present very few, if any, of these landowners actually manage their land for deer – the deer are there mostly by chance, often because there is public land of some description on a boundary or a dense patch of scrub on rather useless land within the property. Opportunities on private land would increase if hunters were willing to make it worthwhile for landowners to actually start managing their deer, perhaps by an outright payment per animal taken, by leasing the hunting rights or by some other non-financial means such as maintenance work on the property or assisting with farm work. Make no mistake, hunting opportunity will not increase on private property while farmers have no incentive to manage their property for deer.
Opportunity could also be increased on private property through controlling fox numbers, particularly if there are a small number of deer within a relatively small and isolated patch of scrub or bush. Although we don’t know for sure how significant fox predation on hog deer calves is, given that they are smaller than a lamb when born and are hidden by the hind for their first few weeks of life, it is likely that calves born in the spring (the usual time for such births) during the fox breeding season would represent an easy and attractive snack.
An increasing number of hunters are ‘biting the bullet’ and purchasing marginal farmland to manage for hog deer and hunting. Ownership of land brings with it the opportunity to choose whether or not your property will carry livestock and how many so that there is always feed available to the deer. It also gives the ability to manipulate the habitat to encourage deer, things like revegetation works, scrub control, provision of a better water supply, planting of feed crops and to control pests such as foxes, rabbits, kangaroos, wallabies and wombats. And of course with ownership there can be no arguments about where you can place hunting infrastructure such as high seats.
Buying or leasing land for hunting is a common practice overseas but has yet to really catch on anywhere in Australia. If there is any deer species in this country that deserves this sort of initiative, it is the hog deer – they are relatively rare, they are highly valued by hunters, can be managed at high population density and they mostly inhabit areas that are marginal for farming and thus less expensive to lease or buy.
If, as I suspect, legal hunting is not constraining hog deer numbers, extending the season to March and April so that it starts before the commencement of the duck season, would reduce the opportunities for poachers and would give hunters more time to take an animal. ADA took this suggestion to the recent review of the Victorian Wildlife Regulations but were rebuffed without any reason being given for this suggestion by the authorities.
Sambar now occupy much or all of the hog deer range and may be competing with them for feed. This is a great pity as sambar are not rare, and it makes sense to remove them from hog deer country at every opportunity if this is legal.
It has long been advocated by ADA and by game managers that an equal take of male and female deer is appropriate to maintain a healthy population with a balanced sex ratio. While this may be appropriate where deer numbers need to be kept below the carrying capacity of the land or to minimise any damage that they may be doing, it makes little sense in my opinion when a population is struggling, as they are across most of their mainland habitat and when the majority of the grazing pressure is due to other species such as kangaroos, wallabies, wombats and rabbits.