Ms Mechtild Rossler Director, World Heritage Centre, UNESCO, 7 Place de Fontenoy, 75352 Paris CEDEX 07 France Tasmania’s World Heritage Area’s and Fallow Deer – Fact or Fiction?
Dear Ms Rossler,
The Tasmania Deer Advisory Committee believes your attention has been drawn and assistance requested to address concerns relating to a perceived impact on Tasmania’s World Heritage Areas by the supposed incursion of Fallow Deer. The TDAC can state unequivocally that the information you received on behalf of Christine Milne and Andrew Cox is both false and misleading.
Tasmania is undoubtedly unique and has an abundance of natural heritage and culture values that all Tasmanians support. As a result of this, the Tasmanian hunting industry and its constituents fully support the plan to ensure our TWHA are not impacted by Fallow Deer (Dama Dama). While it is correct that deer currently inhabit some parts of the TWHA, the reason behind how and why this has occurred needs clarified. The Tasmanian Government and hunting, farmers and environmental organization continually meet to discuss Fallow Deer management in our state. As a result of these collaborations, some great outcomes have recently been achieved such as: • A 300% increase to the hunting season length • Removal of harvest quotas per licence holders (previously 3 deer, now unlimited) • Remove the requirement for hunters to tag harvested animals • A Fallow Deer census conducted by aerial survey These outcomes have ensured that Fallow Deer can continue to be managed effectively, so their impact on the environment and farmland is negligible.
It is important to remember that Fallow Deer have been a part of Tasmanian landscape for close to 200 years and in that time, they have failed to populate the TWHA consistently due to the carrying capacity of the land and the lack of a suitable food source.
Fallow Deer are ‘park deer’ and have successfully evolved worldwide by feeding predominantly on pasture crops and grazing farmland. The simple fact is the TWHA just does not hold a food source of this nature and as a result, the deer prefer to populate agricultural areas. Native grasslands and uninhabited forest have nothing to offer a Fallow Deer so the risk to TWHA being heavily populated is a false narrative. It is also important to note that the recent expanded TWHA boundaries procured land that had previously held a very small population of Fallow Deer. These animals were already established during the process of expansion, the deer did not migrate to the TWHA. The Tasmanian communities do not want to see fallow deer occupy these areas and as a result, any animal that are located within these boundaries are to be humanely culled by volunteer hunters. This would be a perfect solution for all parties, regardless of the number of animals that are located.
Arguably the most important research conducted because of the numerous inquiries and collaborations is the population census. The data received has estimated the Tasmanian Fallow Deer population at approximately 50,000 animals. An estimate of 25,000 deer in 2016 which was quoted by Ms. Milne and Mr. Cox I a previous correspondence to your self was simply a guess and nothing more. Whilst population figures have been estimated flippantly and recklessly in the past, the fact of the matter is 2020 aerial survey is the first time we have received scientific data. As you can understand, by using numbers and quotes from numerous sources, you are able to manipulate numbers to achieve an outcome. I think we can all agree that scientific data is what carries the most weight.
You may or may not be aware that Andrew Cox and Christine Milne have been absent from Deer management in Tasmania for over 20 years. The Tasmanian Deer Advisory Committee have been the most active and forthcoming organization when it comes to Wildlife Management and have pro-actively endorsed changes to how Tasmanian Fallow Deer are managed on both private and public land. It is of no benefit to anyone to have deer populate the TWHA and we will keep working hard to ensure that it never occurs
Please feel free to contact myself if you require further clarification or have any questions.
Hope you enjoyed the read and watch this space as we are working on creating a TDAC web page to help all groups in managing our Tasmanian wildlife.
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