Australia

3744 readers

158 users here now

A place to discuss Australia and important Australian issues.

Before you post:

If you're posting anything related to:

The Environment, post it to Aussie Environment
Politics, post it to Australian Politics
World News/Events, post it to World News
A question to Australians (from outside) post it to Ask an Australian

If you're posting Australian News (not opinion or discussion pieces) post it to Australian News

Rules

This community is run under the rules of aussie.zone. In addition to those rules:

When posting news articles use the source headline and place your commentary in a separate comment

Banner Photo

Congratulations to @[email protected] who had the most upvoted submission to our banner photo competition

Recommended and Related Communities

Be sure to check out and subscribe to our related communities on aussie.zone:

Plus other communities for sport and major cities.

https://aussie.zone/communities

Moderation

Since Kbin doesn't show Lemmy Moderators, I'll list them here. Also note that Kbin does not distinguish moderator comments.

Additionally, we have our instance admins: @[email protected] and @[email protected]

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

TIL: Deer are popping off down here (aussie.zone)

submitted 3 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

34 comments fedilink hide all child comments

In 1980, there were about 50,000 feral deer in Australia and by 2002 the population was estimated to have grown to 200,000. Now, the population is likely to have reached more than 2 million.

Saying it'll be the "next rabbit" etc.

Knew we had them, never knew they were becoming such a huge pest.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 weeks ago (6 children)

Deer are a point of division in the hunting community.
I don't know the rules for all the states, but I can highlight the different approaches different places have with just 2 examples.

In Victoria, they only want to hunt deer "sustainably", so they have recognised "Deer Habitats".
It's also illegal to hunt them at night with a spotlight (the easiest method, they'll literally stand still and look at the light) or use a thermal scope (which of course helps silhouette a naturally camouflaged animal), even during the day.

In South Australia, we have shoot on sight laws - as in you're legally obliged to attempt to humanely kill feral deer when possible.

Kind of says it all, doesn't it?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

In Victoria, they only want to hunt deer “sustainably”, so they have recognised “Deer Habitats”.

I say this without context, but this just sounds absurd. They're an invasive and destructive species, right? To sustain native wildlife, we don't want to sustain the deer population.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Regulatory Capture.
The government didn't want to be in charge of this, so they've offloaded the responsibility (and the power) to a private organisation, in this case the Game Management Authority.
The GMA aren't all bad, they are also a primary driver behind the protection of native waterways (that just coincidentally happen to be duck shooting spots).
As a shooter, I have complex opinions about groups like the GMA and SSAA that theoretically exist for my benefit.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

I stopped giving SSAA any of my money. I don't agree with most of their political lobbying stances, especially for reducing requirements around accessing firearms and legalising higher rate of fire guns.

Hasn't been any great loss.

load more comments (3 replies)