The Australian Deer Association co-authored a paper published in the Wildlife Research journal titled: Characterising a unique recreational hunting method: hound hunting of sambar deer (Cervus unicolor) in Victoria, Australia.
This study aimed to characterise the method of hound hunting on sambar deer in Victoria. It had three objectives:
To do this, the Australian Deer Association arranged for four Victorian hound hunting crews to participate and collect data during 2020 and 2021. The hounds were fitted with GPS collars to provide data such as hunt duration (min) and distance (m).
Four study areas were used during the legal hound season of April-November in 2020 and 2021. These areas included the Highlands-Southern Fall and Highlands-Northern Falls bioregions which contain a wide variety of floristic communities. The region is dominated by wet sclerophyll forests, charaterised by Eucalyptus spp., Accacia dealbata and Pomaderris aspera with an understory of Coprosma quadrifida, Correa lawrenceana and Pittosporum bicolour.
Of the 136 hunts, 88% resulted in a harvested deer, with deer escaping on the other 12% of occasions (none were wounded and escaped). Male and female deer were harvested in similar numbers. The pursuit times and distances of the hunts were highly variable, with pursuit time >60 min for 46% of hunts and pursuit distance > 5 for 30% of hunts.
The mean shooting distance for deer harvested during the study was 39m, considerably lower than the average of 111m recorded for other ground-based shooting of sambar.
Sambar were more likely to be harvested on steep slopes, near roads and in woody cover. This reflects the hunting method, as opposed to sambar deer distribution. As of 2019, 19% (25,000) of the yearly harvest of sambar deer was taken via hound hunting.
The study concluded that successful hound hunting requires a network of roads, potentially limiting the usefulness of this method for controlling deer in remote areas. Hound hunting chase times and distances are long relative to other deer hunting methods, but non-fatal wounding was not reported. And went on to note that hound hunting may be a useful wildlife management tool for land managers, but further studies are needed to assess its efficacy for achieving management goals.
The study would not have been possible without the considerable efforts of the following Australian Deer Association members: Danny Edebohls, Craig Hill, Corey Lewis and Chris Eaton.
The Australian Deer Association is proud to continue to improve the scientific knowledge of wild deer in Australia; this knowledge is vital to the sound management of wild deer, which is one of our core focuses alongside public land hunting.
To read the study in full, please click here.
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