John Gryphon
Well-Known Member
VICTORIA
Deer cull: Carcasses an ‘all-you-can-eat buffet’ for wild dogs
PETER HUNT, The Weekly Times
June 5, 2019 12:00am
Subscriber only
STARTLING images of wild dogs feasting on deer carcasses have proven Parks Victoria’s “leave them where they fall” deer culling policy is providing an all-you-can-eat buffet for the state’s worst feral predator.
“The irony of course is the government spends money controlling wild dogs, while at the same time feeding and breeding them,” East Gippsland Nationals MP Tim Bull said. “It’s just like dishing up dogs a serve of McDonalds, right on the verge of farmland.”
In spring Parks Victoria used a helicopter to aerial cull 119 deer, with professional shooters working on the ground to take out another 300-400 prior to Easter in the state’s vast Alpine National Park. The results of a second autumn aerial cull are yet to be released.
Environment Minister Lily D’Ambrosio has told parliament “in areas where they have no impact on visual amenity or water quality, deer carcasses will be left where they fall”.
“As part of Parks Victoria’s deer control programs in the Alpine National Park, only deer carcasses within wetlands or waterways, and those visible from walking or vehicle tracks, are removed.”
The minister denied wild dogs were consuming large quantities of culled deer, stating a 2014 departmental research found: “while wild dogs visit deer carcasses during the recreational hunting season, the primary mode of decomposition for the carcasses was through invertebrates, as opposed to consumption by wild dogs”.
But Eagle Point deer stalker and amateur photographer Doug Read, who has spent years compiling shots of wild dogs and other predators, feeding on carcasses he has shot in the Alpine National Park, says the Minister’s comments were nonsense.
He said his trail camera photographs showed wild dogs on sambar deer carcasses were “not paying the carcass a social visit, obviously”.
“A deer carcass represents an easy short-term food source for wild dogs and if there are any in the vicinity of a deer kill they will visit it and feed on the carcass regardless of how it died,” Mr Read said.
“Why should dogs visit a recreational hunter’s deer carcass yet not one taken by (government-contracted) pro-shooters either operating on the ground or from an aerial platform? To make a distinction here is simply trying to justifying their “leave them where they fall” approach.
Mr Read said Parks Victoria’s practice of culling deer in spring provided whelping bitches with feed, increasing litter survival rates and those deer shot in late autumn helped dogs get through winter.
Nationals Agriculture spokesman Peter Walsh said Minister D’Ambrosio leave them where they fall culling policy was an “all-you-can-eat buffet” that was “quite literally feeding wild dogs and fox populations”.
“We all know the devastation wild dogs in particular cause to native fauna and farm animals, as well as the angst they create for farmers, so this ‘visiting carcasses’ response is just an absolute, out of touch insult.”
Mr Read’s images also show the diversity of animals that feed on deer carcasses, ranging from wedge-tailed eagles and powerful owls to brush-tailed possums.
“The wedge-tailed eagles are the first to spot deer and feed while it’s still fresh,” Mr Read said.
“Dogs won’t come in until it’s a bit on the nose. I’ve see a couple of powerful owls, but rarely seen quolls.”
He said the fact native birds and mammals feed on deer carcasses undermined the Victorian Farmers Federation’s call to poison deer with 1080 or another toxin.
“There’s real concern if they embark on using 1080,” Mr Read said. “How much would you have to put out to poison a 300kg sambar deer.”
“I think we have to accept deer are here to stay and we just have to grin and bear it.”
