Sambar deer are a challenging land management issue for conservation, recreation, agricultural productivity and road safety.
Some see Sambar as a welcome guest while others simply as a pest. Whatever your perspective, one thing we can all agree on is that their numbers need to be managed.
EGCMN, in partnership with DELWP, Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation, Parks Victoria, Landcare and recreational hunting groups, has coordinated the first-ever cross tenure landscape scale deer management trial, centred around Lake Tyers:
The Lake Tyers Deer Control Trial
Read Our Lake Tyers Deer Management Trail FINAL Report here.
All the below information is now historic.
We are currently not accepting new volunteer hunters.
Delivered over three years the trial sort private land owners and hunters to participate in the program as well as working with Parks Victoria to see post bushfire deer control works contribute to the project.
We wanted to see if by increasing hunting pressure and coordinating recreation hunting we can reduce deer abundance at scale and detect a change in vegetation condition.
More details on the Lake Tyers Deer Management Program Trial is available via these information sheets – For Hunters and Landowners.
These Links to ‘priority conservation hunting area’ maps show where we want to increase hunting pressure on Private land, State Forest– and areas recently subject to logging activity within the project.
Please ensure the following when selecting a location to hunt as a part of this project:
- You must be legally entitled to undertake hunting no-matter where you are and it is your responsibility to insure this is the case at all times- aka hunt responsibly.
- For private land areas, you must have the written permission of the land manager.
- For recently logged areas, all Vic-forests signage, including ‘Timber Harvesting Safely Zones’ must be complied with.
Hunting resources including detailed maps of specific hunt sectors and ”priority conservation hunting areas’, where we are looking to target increased hunting pressure, as part of the trial, will soon be made available to hunters who have signed up to the program- stay tuned or contact us for more details!
All normal hunting regulations apply and we suggest any area of State Forest to be hunted is checked against the Game Management Authorities data, available in the More to Explore app here.
If undertaking hunting as part of this project, it is essential you provide the project team with details relating to your activities, so we can record them and use the information to improve deer management outcomes for all users.
Please use this form to record and submit details of your hunting activity.
Lake Tyers is home to many areas of critically endangered Littoral Rainforest, which are directly and indirectly threatened by Sambar deer. This project aims to control the deer to protect the rainforest and other values.
The project is also the first of its kind to work across land tenures and jurisdictions, in recognition that deer management is a truly landscape level issue which cant be addressed by only working on one side of fence (literally and politically!).
So far in the three year project EGCMN has undertaken extensive monitoring of deer relative abundance via use of 80 camera traps, and vegetation condition via 120 plant quadrants to establish baseline information. From there we have been working with hunters and local communities to reduce deer numbers by ground shooting in State Forest and on private land.
EGCMN are working closely on this trial with:
- Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation
- East and Far East Gippsland Landcare Networks
- Parks Victoria
- DELWP
- Australian Deer Association
- Sporting Shooters Association
- Melbourne University
