Next deer cull on Bogong High Plains 23-25 Oct

[Xplora]

Just information for any considering a trip to BHP then next planned deer cull will take place from Friday 23/10 to Sunday 25/10/15. The area of the cull will be west of the Lanes (on some maps Wildhorse track), around Kelly's track and east of Fitzgerald's and Kelly's huts and the Wildhorse creek area. Signs will be posted at trail heads but the park will not be closed. Those participating in the cull will be identifiable but they will not necessarily be with a ranger. Further information can be obtained through the Parks office in Mt Beauty.

[Moondog55]

I hope they are planning on salvaging the venison, that will be a lot of sausages

[neilmny]

I hope they are planning on salvaging the venison, that will be a lot of sausages

I'm not 100% sure but I don't think the carcasses can be removed from the national park.

[Moondog55]

Then maybe we really should be reintroducing Devils to eat the rotting carcasses, if hunting you can take the meat out so I see no reason it can't be done except logistics

[Xplora]

It has been strongly suggested to parks that the carcass should not be left behind. Those involved are keen on taking the meat and I don't think there is any objection to it as long as they can transport it back to their camp without a vehicle. I will follow up if any of the 4 shot so far have been taken out. The issue is more about a food source for wild dog pups but they say research suggests it is not considered a problem. The research I quoted them says different. Locals in Benambra say there was no wild dog problem until Parks culled feral goats by helicopter and left the carcass. Now they are plagued with dogs. Venison sausages need fat added also to make them any good. I all other parks where deer culls are taking place the carcass is removed. Not sure what happens to the meat.

[sambar358]

My understanding of the Bogong sambar cull is that if it is possible the venison will be removed from the bush......but this wouldn't mean the "whole carcass" of course unless it is close to a track as a mature sambar stag weighs 250-300kgs and obviously that cannot just be hoiked across your shoulders and lumped out of the bush whole ! The deer "frame" would most-likely be left behind and any bullet-damaged meat and only the usable venison recovered. So even with partial venison recovery there will be quite a bit of meat left behind which will be utilised by all carnivors of course not just the wild dogs....other animlas such as eagles, hawks, crows, currawongs, quolls, possums and other native carnivors also take advantage of this short-term food bonus.

Having the requirement to recover each culled sambar is a double-edged sword really.....doing so removes some of a short-term food source for any wild dogs in the area but it takes-up valuable time for the hunter (possibly the whole day) which should be better spent seeking-out more sambar to shoot. If the purpose of the cull is to maximise the hunter effort to get the most deer per cull thus reducing their impact on the environment then the policy should really be "shoot 'em and leave 'em and go find another one". A few wild dogs will clean-up a sambar carcass in a week or two as they tend to virtually camp on them until all is consumed.......then they'll go back to their normal prey-species such as wombats, wallabies, possums, emus etc.

When I'm sambar hunting its common these days to see 10-15 deer in a day with many of these presenting shot opportunities so if I was "culling" as opposed to hunting for my own enjoyment then to do the job properly in the spirit of a cull (ie : to have a significant impact on the deer numbers) then I should shoot every one that gives me the opportunity......leave it and move-on and find another one. If the cull conditions require me to remove the venison from the bush then my first kill will most likely be my last as I'll be lumping meat all day rather than trying to take more deer. So it's not possible to have it both ways really but if Parks are requiring carcass-recovery for their Bogong sambar culls then the take of animals per cull effort will be signficantly reduced and therefore so will the impact of any deer number reduction in realation to lessening their impact on the alpine habitat in that area.

I tend not to support the theory that wild dogs are flourishing because of deer carcasses left behind in the bush by hunters......certainly a deer carcass is a short term food bonus for a few wild dogs that are in that spot at the time but in many areas if the wild dogs had to rely on finding deer carcasses from hunter kills then they'd go hungry more often than not IMO. If there are localised culls or deer, goats or 'roos and the carcasses left behind then certainly if there are wild dogs present they'll take advantage of that but as these culls are usually conducted over a few days now and again the food source from them is not reliable & available all the time.....just occasionally and with probably random timings. To date there have been 3 deer culls in the Bogong Unit of the ANP for a total of 4 deer taken......hardly a huge food bonus for the areas high wild dog population.

I would think that any recovered vension will be utilised by the participating hunters as was the case with the venison from the 40+ hog deer recently culled in the Wilsons Prom NP under a similar program......and I would also expect that any antlers from stags culled would be surrendered to Parks or the Game Management Authority as was done down the Prom. Participating hunters in these deer culls are volunteering their time free of charge for this, often travelling long distances at their own cost to participate and they have all undergone a thorough training and accreditation process again at their own expense to allow them to assist Parks with their deer control initiatives and being able to take-home some venison as a reward for their collective efforts should be a given I would hope. Cheers

s358

[madmacca]

As always with your posts Sambar, it is great to get the thinking hunter's perspective on all this.

[neilmny]

As always with your posts Sambar, it is great to get the thinking hunter's perspective on all this.

Yep, sambar358 gives a lot of good, no bull info on this stuff.

[Moondog55]

My hope was that Parks would be funding the helicopter needed to lift out the whole carcass as done in NZ. But I'm with Tim Flannery here and really do think we should bring the Devils back to the mainland

[Xplora]

I posted this more for information so people could make plans to avoid the area or be less concerned if they heard shooting in the park. I wasn't intending to comment on the logistics of the operation but it goes were it goes. Every local person has requested the carcasses be removed and they do not care who does it. Personally I am happy for those involved to get something out of it for their time and effort but I want the carcass gone as well. Culls have been going on in several other parks and all the carcasses are removed. Now that may be because they do not want people to see them and feel it would be less likely in Bogong area. As I said, I do not have information about this but I will follow it up next time I meet with the Parks people. Wild dogs also forage for grubs and worms and this could be their staple. Hunting takes a lot of energy and is often unsuccessful. Dogs are not always in packs either. I have seen them hunt kangaroos in packs and they give up because the roos are too fast but they do catch them if they can tire them out. Usually it will be the weak or young.

Wild dogs seem to be under control in this area for the moment. There hasn't been a calf taken in a long time but I did see one on the Omeo Hwy coming out of Batty's calving paddock earlier this year. It was probably cleaning up the afterbirth. I have not seen or heard anywhere near the number of a few years ago and would hope to keep it that way. There is also no dog control in the area apart from local farmers. One farmer lost an old dog to wild dogs not too long ago. It strayed onto a deer carcass which was left by hunters and the wild dogs were having a feast. Most of the feral dogs in this area are Kelpie looking but I have seen some very dingo looking dogs as well. I am told there is a strong dingo line in the mountains and Parks wants it to survive. The 3 I have seen are very red in the coat and have a typical dingo head and tail.

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To date there have been 3 deer culls in the Bogong Unit of the ANP for a total of 4 deer taken......hardly a huge food bonus for the areas high wild dog population.
s358

There has only been 2 culls and the third is the one I have mentioned. Apart from the 4 shot on the first cull there were 13 others sighted but because of safety regulations a shot could not be taken. No deer were seen on the second cull and the vegetation/terrain made it difficult. If they manage to increase the number of deer shot to the projected numbers then there would be a considerable food source in a small area which would encourage dogs to hang around in larger numbers. Time will tell. The trail cameras are picking up large numbers of deer in the area but over the last 2 months of regular walking in the cull zone I have not seen one. I have seen tracks and fresh scat. I was not stalking though but usually I stumble on or startle a deer or two without trying. A local farmer told me the other day there was less trouble with deer on the mountain when they had cattle up there. I suppose then there was more trouble with the damage cattle did but that is another can or worms. Thanks Sambar358 for you input. Moondog - not sure if a helicopter was factored into the budget but I foresee it would be difficult to retrieve some carcasses without one and driving a vehicle all over the sensitive areas is not going to happen (you would hope).

[sambar358]

Good post Xplora. I'm familiar with the logistics of several other sambar culls where the main method of shooting was on tracks using a vehicle & spotlight and the sambar shot were therefore close to the road and recovered whole alebit usually with considerable effort and time expended doing it. I believe one exercise in one of the Melb water catchment areas even utilised a bobcat or similiar towed behind a support vehicle for the purpose.....maybe the Bogong cull Parks argo vehicle will be used for this as well.

However if Parks are going to limit the cull effort to areas where full carcass recovery is always achievable then realistically the cull is not going to have any sort of impact on the sambar population at all as they are heavily entrenched in the entire area and have been for almost 30 years and any sambar shot will just be replaced by other animals quite quickly. This part of the Bogong unit of the ANP has always be closed to recreational deer hunting and the sambar have had virtually a protected-species status for all this time free to breed unchecked and obviously now Parks have realised that there are a few deer getting about and something needs to be done about them......and fast ! Effective culling is all about sustained effort over a lengthy period of time employing a pretty ruthless approach to getting the numbers down and then keeping the pressure on the remaining animals to keep their numbers supressed to achieve a reasonable environmental outcome in the longer term.

It would be unlikely that Parks would be factoring-in helicopter recovery into the Bogong deer cull budget to lift-out all shot deer from the bush......apart from being extremely expensive to run a suitable machine (think $3000+ an hour for a Squirrel and 2 man crew) this sort of activity is very dangerous, highly specialised and would most likely require using an aircrew familiar with venison recovery from steep bushed country and that'd mean more expense in possibly using a crew from NZ where lifting shot deer out of dangerous terrain is more common. At some stage the government may experiment with aerial culling for sambar in suitable country but the solitary nature of the sambar will make this more difficult and very expensive per-deer taken and I doubt if this would be a financially sustainable method of control even in the medium term.

So if limited ground culling is not seen as a viable option due to various Parks imposed limitions & aerial culling by helicopter is too expensive and ineffective......then what ? Poison maybe.....and if so then via aerial 1080 baiting would be the most likely method ! And then of course we get back to lots of dead deer randomly rotting in the bush and the wild dog problem scenario once again with the added black cloud of a potential huge bi-kill of non target species that either take the 1080 baits intended for the deer or feed on the carcass and then die as a result of a secondary poisoning. Unfortunately I see things heading this way at some stage......"well we tried ground shooting and that didn't work, the choppers were too expensive to run and they didn't get enough anyway......DOC in NZ reckons 1080's the go......let's try that !" Hopefully I'm very wrong here.....but food for thought anyway. Cheers

s358

[vicrev]

Great posts , Xplora & Sambar,lots of commonsense & stating things as they are.......thanks

[Xplora]

I am no expert on deer hunting and I would defer to those who are but there is a method of hunting in the USA which is not strictly legal and it involves leaving baits for the deer to attract them to an area and then they are shot. A bit of a canned hunt and much like poor old Cecil the Lion but we know deer eat carrots. They are used in NZ with 1080 so would dropping a bait in an area attract deer for a feed where they can be shot from a hide? I know it would take some time for the deer to become accustomed to the food source.
I think as Sambar does, the reality is this cull will never succeed to the extent we will not see deer in the area and those shot will be replaced by others. I doubt the number shot will take account for the yearly population increase in the area so at some time in the future a decision will have to be made to either give up and live with the damage or a poison control will be used. There is some R and D happening with poisons so in time they may come up with an alternative to 1080 but it has been an effective control of pests for many years. It was used in Victoria to control rabbits in the 1950's and the Hog deer population was almost wiped out. As Sambar has said, there is a bi-kill effect because the poison stays in the carcass and it could affect birds as well as wild dogs. They are already baiting wild dogs for it so there is carrion available for the birds and it seems the meat eating birds are not declining. There are many opponents of 1080 because they say it is not humane and there is no antidote. It is classified as moderately humane because of the length of time it takes from ingestion to death but the effects of the poison are not apparent in the animal for some time. Death is usually from heart failure. Aerial baiting for dogs has started out of Mt Hotham so there is a poisoned meat source available to birds on the ground in the area. It is an effective means of control and much more effective than hunting has been or will ever be.
Allowing open hunting in this area of the ANP will not control deer to a number where it's impact in sensitive areas will be significant. Open hunting is allowed in many adjoining areas and deer numbers are still growing there. As long as I draw breath I will fight any attempts to open this area to hunting but I know something has to be done and this trial, which I support, is the first step toward the realisation that other methods must be investigation and employed. I have met with the people running the show and they are genuine in their concern for the area and are overcoming logistical problems to make it more effective but to be effective they need to take large numbers and keep taking them. The classification of deer is at present a threatening species so I guess not enough money will be thrown at it until it becomes a pest which in reality it is. The deer hunting associations are resisting the classification because they believe it will stop them hunting deer in the current proclaimed areas. Legislation can fix that. They would also resist anything considered an effective control measure as it would significantly affect their sport. I feel there needs to be some balance. Sambar deer where once the prize for a deer hunter as they were so hard to take. Now they are common and have even been seen in the main street of Omeo. I believe their abundance has introduced another species into deer hunting haunts, that of the opportunistic bogan hunter who has little regard for the way it should be done and less regard for the law or private property. If they were harder to find this sort of hunter would give up sooner and leave the area to those like Sambar358 who respect the bush and tread lightly while enjoying their sport.

[sambar358]

Xplora......you make some good points once again. The declaration of deer as a "pest" is another one of those double-edged swords unfortunately as it then causes a situation where the hunting/shooting of them is totally unregulated like that of our other pest animals.....so no Game Licences, no calibre restrictions, no seasons, no rules etc.....open slather for anyone who wants to have a crack at one.....day or night. And this then creates it's own problems mainly related to enforcement.....preventing people from doing the wrong thing in regard to trespass, shooting off roads, spotlighting in populous places etc......and this will be one of the main impediments to deer ever being officially declared a pest species....but it could happen I agree. But the cure could-well be worse than the disease and this is a view currently shared by the Police and other government departments that will have to deal with the enforcement aspect of this should it happen.

At the moment in permitted areas of the Alpine National Park seasonal deer hunting is permitted as deer have the status of "game" & we are permitted to hunt deer only.....no pest species at all.....so no rabbits, foxes, wild dogs, goats, feral cats etc.....just deer. So if we have a reclassification of deer from "game" to "pest" then in theory we as der hunters will instantly loose access to the Park to hunt as the deer are no longer classed as "game". But as you've mentioned......legislative change would be required to continue to allow hunting of deer in the Park should their status be changed.....and certainly that would need to be absolutely guaranteed before the hunting organisations would support such a change if indeed they would at all. I think the deer hunting organisations have a realistic view of the current deer scene and acknowledge that despite pretty signficant hunting pressure deer numbers continue to build rapidly in most areas and where their numbers are too high they have the potential to impact to a significant degree on various types of habitat. And I think that the current co-operative approach that Parks has taken with the deer hunting organisations is a very positive sign for the future and its encouraging to see hunters and Parks working together in localised areas to address specific deer issues and over time this should have a positive result in lessening the "them and us" attitude that has for too long prevailed between many Parks staff and deer hunters. Maybe in the longer term we'll see some re-assessment of the current access arrangements for recreational deer hunting in some of the areas currently close to hunting as I certainly see the deer numbers continuing to build strongly well into the future.....eradication will never be achieved, control even is probably unrealistic across-the-board but it may be possible to slow things down a bit here and there but anything above that will be very difficult to achieve I think.....like it or not......the deer are here to stay !

You make a very valid point about the ready availability of deer giving rise to a crop of opportunistic bogan hunters who have little regard for the law, land status or indeed the deer unfortunately. This is the downside of the current popularity of deer hunting.....and of course these types are a building problem for those resposible for enforcement who have to deal with floods of incident reports each year regarding spotlighting, trespass, illegal hunting and other associated issues related to the dark side of deer hunting. I often think that it would be great to return to the earlier times of sambar hunting when the deer were fewer and very hard to find.....while they are still a very switched-on animal and no push-over for the lone hunter on foot in the mountains their sheer numbers in many areas certainly give you a better chance of having a contact or two each day. And back when the sambar numbers were low and they were very hard to find only the keen hunters stuck at it......those that weren't fully committed for the long-haul soon dropped away and left the scene and back then we certanly didn't have the compliance issues that are common today.

Finally.....on "baiting"....or laying-out some food to attract deer to an area where they can be shot. Certainly it works in the US with their Whitetail deer and doing this is quite common and legal too in most states I think. In Vic it is illegal for hunters to bait deer on public land for the purpose of hunting......and this includes laying-out various favoured food items, planting a small crop in a bush clearing and putting-out various mineral lick blocks etc......so not legal for a hunter to do that for the purpose of hunting in Vic. Generally before a 1080 baiting program is carried-out the animals in the area to be baited are free-fed for some time with a similar food source to what will be later laced with poison and this is successfully done with rabbits in particular and is normal practice for baiting pest herbivore animals. I think that it'd be difficult to successfully lay bait stations to shoot good numbers of sambar deer over....but it'd be worth experimenting with just the same......and most certainly sambar are very keen on apples and potatoes in particular and a truck-load of either dumped in a clearing somewhere in country with plenty of deer about would get a few visits I would think....but with sambar being sambar they'd probably do that at night.....so some gen 3 NV equipment might be needed as well. But for me to do that I'd be risking getting into some serious strife......not so for Parks of course !

Sambar deer are an opportunistic feeder and one of the reasons that they have done so well across a wide variety of habitat types is that they'll eat virtually any plant species in any sort of environment from the dry coastal banksia country to the open snowgum country of our highest mountains. They are primarily a browser preferring to randomly pick at the foliage of shrubs and bushes as they move-about rather than heavily graze on grass like the fallow deer tend to do and for sambar anything really that is a plant is a possible food source and they will fourish virtually anywhere. A while ago I watched a couple of sambar hinds selectively feeding on the leaves from some young snowgum suckers choosing to ignore the abundant clover and other lush grasses underfoot.....often I've noted gum leaves present in the paunches of sambar deer that I have shot......so they're never going to go hungry even in severe drought years in our mountains as there'll always be plenty of gums to browse on. Off this arvo for a week with a mate from SA over on his annual sambar trip with me......and we're heading up to the usual haunt over near your patch......maybe we'll catch-up one day and be able to have a chat ! Cheers

s358

[Xplora]

The declaration of deer as a "pest" is another one of those double-edged swords unfortunately as it then causes a situation where the hunting/shooting of them is totally unregulated like that of our other pest animals.....so no Game Licences, no calibre restrictions, no seasons, no rules etc.....open slather for anyone who wants to have a crack at one.....day or night. And this then creates it's own problems mainly related to enforcement.....preventing people from doing the wrong thing in regard to trespass, shooting off roads, spotlighting in populous places etc......and this will be one of the main impediments to deer ever being officially declared a pest species....but it could happen I agree. But the cure could-well be worse than the disease and this is a view currently shared by the Police and other government departments that will have to deal with the enforcement aspect of this should it happen.

This is already happening extensively and enforcement is difficult in remote areas when there is only one Police officer an hour away and the GMA operations tend to use Police resources as well. On the last GMA enforcement operation the local copper ended up engaged in other policing duties and the operation fell over. I doubt classifying them as a pest will change the attitude of those inclined to do the wrong thing anyway. Another headless deer in Batty's paddock I was told yesterday. I do agree that the calibre restrictions would still have to be maintained.
I also doubt many deer hunters will shoot a rabbit or other small animal with a 270 or bigger even if allowed. Maybe a dog, possibly a cat but a deer rifle makes a big noise and if you are out for deer then the last thing you want to do is signal your intentions particularly if you are out for a trophy.
I will make a suggestion to those in charge of the cull about dropping baits. They are doing some night stuff and there maybe some in the group with NV.