An article in The Sunday Age (paywalled) highlighted allegations of illegal hunting and trespass on private property in South Gippsland. If the allegations outlined in the article are accurate, those responsible should be identified, prosecuted and held fully accountable. Trespass, unsafe firearm use and illegal hunting are criminal acts that are unequivocally condemned by SSAA Victoria and the overwhelming majority of Victoria’s licensed deer hunters.
With more than 46,000 licensed deer hunters in Victoria, illegal hunting represents the actions of a tiny minority who undermine relationships with landholders and damage the reputation of every law-abiding hunter.
The article’s author, Benjamin Preiss, has generally taken a considered approach to firearms and hunting issues. This article raises a legitimate issue worthy of discussion. However, several important factual and policy claims require additional context if readers are to properly understand Victoria’s wild deer management system.
Wild deer are not “feral”
Throughout the article, deer are repeatedly described as “feral deer”.
While this terminology has become commonplace in media reporting, it is technically incorrect.
A feral animal is generally understood to be a domesticated animal that has returned to the wild. Victoria’s deer populations were never domesticated. They are introduced wild animals.
That distinction may appear semantic, but language matters because it shapes public perception. Wild deer can certainly be overabundant, environmentally damaging or present significant management challenges without resorting to technically inaccurate terminology.
If the impacts are as serious as claimed, they should be able to stand on their own evidence without embellishment.
Illegal hunting should be reported to the authorities, not just the media
One aspect of the article is genuinely curious.
It states that Mr. Leppitt intends to take photographs of an alleged trespasser to “an acquaintance who lives nearby and is a police officer.”
If there is evidence of a prima facie criminal offence, the appropriate course is to provide that evidence immediately to Victoria Police and the Game Management Authority.
The GMA operates intelligence-led compliance and enforcement programs and has a strong record of investigating wildlife offences. Like any law enforcement agency, however, it relies on intelligence from the public to identify offenders.
Media coverage can raise awareness. Reporting offences helps catch criminals.
Illegal hunters do not represent Victorian hunters
The article correctly notes that it is illegal to hunt on private property without permission.
Licensed recreational hunters overwhelmingly support strong enforcement against trespassers because they damage relationships with landholders and undermine the social license of lawful hunting.
Statistics are understandably little comfort to someone whose property has been unlawfully entered, but it is equally important not to portray isolated criminal behavior as representative of a community of more than 46,000 licensed deer hunters who overwhelmingly obey the law.
Hearing gunshots is not evidence of illegal hunting
The article notes that Mr. Leppitt frequently hears shooting in the district and is unsure who is hunting.
South Gippsland is a rural farming district where landholders routinely undertake lawful control of foxes, rabbits and deer, particularly at night on private land where this activity is legal.
Hearing gunshots somewhere in the district should not, by itself, be interpreted as evidence that somebody is trespassing on a neighbouring property.
Indeed, given the heavily vegetated nature of Mr. Leppitt’s property detailed in the article, it is arguably less suited night shooting than more open agricultural enterprises in the area.
The Arthur Rylah Institute research was misrepresented
The article states:
“A 2023 study of deer density by government agency Arthur Rylah Institute cited reports that feral deer numbers ranged from several hundred thousand to more than one million in Victoria.”
Technically, that sentence is correct.
However, it is also likely to mislead readers about what the Arthur Rylah Institute research actually found.
The figure of “several hundred thousand to more than one million” was not a finding of the Arthur Rylah Institute study. It was a reference to earlier estimates discussed in the Victorian Deer Control Strategy, which itself states:
“It is unknown how many wild deer there are in Victoria, however, some estimate that combined, the four species number between several hundred thousand up to one million wild animals or more.”
In other words, the Arthur Rylah Institute was citing historical context, not presenting its own estimate of Victoria’s deer population.
The actual finding of the research was an estimated 191,153 deer on Victorian public land within the scope of the survey.
That figure is almost certainly an underestimate of the statewide population (as we discussed on a recent SSAA Victoria Podcast) because it excluded private land and acknowledged limitations in the survey methodology. Nevertheless, it is the principal finding of the study.
By highlighting a historical estimate discussed in the background section of the research rather than the study’s actual conclusions, readers could easily be left with the mistaken impression that the Arthur Rylah Institute itself concluded there were more than one million deer in Victoria.
Those are two very different propositions.
Accurately distinguishing between background literature and research findings is important because public policy debates should be informed by what scientific studies actually conclude, not simply by figures they happen to reference in their introductory discussion.
Game status does not protect deer
Perhaps the article’s most significant policy claim came from the Invasive Species Council, which asserted that deer are effectively protected because they are classified as game.
That is simply not an accurate description of Victorian law.
With the exception of the small and geographically discrete Hog Deer population:
- All game deer species may be hunted year-round.
- There are no bag limits.
- More than one million hectares of public land are available for deer hunting.
- Deer have been unprotected on private land since 2013.
- Landholders may remove deer causing damage without requiring a Game Licence.
- Deer may legally be controlled at night on private land under those provisions.
A species that may be harvested every day of the year without bag limits is difficult to characterise as legally “protected”.
The Game Management Authority itself explains why deer remain classified as game:
“Deer species residing in Victoria are not classified as pests as this will achieve no real on-ground benefit and would leave harvesting unregulated. This could result in unsafe hunting practices, such as shooting deer under spotlight at night on public land. In addition, there would be a legal obligation for landowners to control deer on their property – this would impose a significant burden for landowners and would divert money and resources away from their core objective of primary production.”
Declaring deer pests would not solve illegal hunting
The article concludes with suggestions that declaring deer a pest species would improve management and reduce illegal hunting.
That may be a sincerely held belief.
It is also contrary to the Victorian Government’s own published advice.
The Game Management Authority has repeatedly explained that changing the legal status of deer would provide little practical on-ground benefit, remove important regulatory safeguards and create new legal obligations on landholders to control deer on their own properties.
Changing a legal classification will not stop criminals from trespassing.
Nor will it prevent wild deer from moving across the landscape.
Claims of illegal hunting being “rife” deserve evidence
The article reports the Invasive Species Council’s claim that illegal hunting is “rife” in Walhalla, then presents two anecdotal examples from an unspecified period.
SSAA Victoria has spent considerable time in and around Walhalla assessing deer populations and engaging with local residents, businesses and public land users.
Our understanding is that describing illegal hunting in the township as “rife” is, at best, a considerable overstatement.
Any incident of illegal hunting is one too many.
That is a very different proposition from asserting that criminal offending is widespread without presenting supporting evidence.
Lobbying is not the same as expertise
Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the article is not that it quoted the Invasive Species Council.
It is that many of the article’s central policy claims came from the Invasive Species Council and were largely presented without scrutiny or meaningful balance.
The Invasive Species Council is a greens-aligned lobby group.
It is not a wildlife management agency.
It does not manage wild deer.
It has no demonstrated operational expertise in recreational deer hunting, wild deer ecology or on-ground deer management. Its role is to lobby for particular policy outcomes, and it has a long and well-documented history of opposing recreational hunting on public land and campaigning for restrictions on hunting more broadly.
There is nothing illegitimate about that. Lobby organisations have every right to participate in public debate.
However, lobbying should not be confused with subject matter expertise.
If a journalist were writing about bushfire suppression, they would seek comment from firefighters. If they were writing about fisheries management, they would seek fisheries scientists. An article examining wild deer management should also seek the views of organisations with practical expertise in deer ecology, hunting and on-ground management.
The article also uncritically repeats a claim by John Kelly of the Invasive Species Council that “methods deployed in other states, including corralling deer and greater use of aerial culling, would help alleviate the disastrous environmental impact the animals caused in Victoria.”
That statement itself deserves scrutiny.
The suggestion that corralling wild deer represents a practical, broad-scale management solution demonstrates a significant lack of understanding of wild deer behaviour and management. Corralling free-ranging deer is technically difficult, labour-intensive and prohibitively expensive. Even where deer can be successfully captured, they must still be humanely euthanised. From both practical and animal-welfare perspectives, it is difficult to see how corralling could ever become anything other than a very niche management tool in Victoria.
Likewise, repeated calls for greater aerial culling should be examined against measurable outcomes rather than assumptions. Victorian taxpayers have invested many millions of dollars in aerial deer control over the past decade. Despite that investment, there is very little publicly available evidence demonstrating measurable, landscape-scale environmental improvements directly attributable to those programs. Counting the number of deer killed is not the same as demonstrating improvements in biodiversity, native vegetation or ecosystem health.
This exposes a broader problem with the Invasive Species Council’s approach. It consistently lobbies for increasingly expensive, government-led interventions while dismissing or downplaying the contribution of recreational hunting. Yet it has produced little evidence demonstrating that the alternative management tools it champions have delivered better long-term environmental outcomes in Victoria.
Ultimately, the Invasive Species Council is asking governments and taxpayers to place their faith in management tools that are expensive, operationally complex and, to date, have not been supported by publicly available evidence of measurable environmental outcomes at a landscape scale. At the same time, it routinely dismisses Victoria’s recreational hunting community, despite the Government’s own figures showing licensed hunters removed 158,500 deer last year.
SSAA Victoria has also previously corrected material published by the Invasive Species Council that purported to show deer antler-rubbing damage but was far more consistent with wombat activity. When lobbying begins to outpace logic, confidence in the broader debate is diminished.
The Invasive Species Council is entitled to lobby for whatever policies it wishes. However, lobbying should not be mistaken for expertise, and its claims deserve the same critical scrutiny as those of any other stakeholder. It is disappointing that this article afforded those claims little scrutiny while seeking no detailed comment from organisations representing the 46,000-plus licensed deer hunters who spend more time observing, hunting and managing wild deer on the ground than any other stakeholder group in Victoria.
Recreational hunting is already delivering measurable outcomes
One point that deserved far greater prominence was the Government’s own advice.
Environment Minister Enver Erdogan advised that licensed recreational hunters removed 158,500 deer last year, 66 per cent above the long-term average. This dwarfs the numbers taken by taxpayer-funded control efforts.
That figure demonstrates that Victoria’s large and growing recreational hunting community is already making a substantial contribution to deer management.
Importantly, recreational hunters do not generally head into the bush because they see themselves as environmental managers. They hunt for recreation, challenge, food and time outdoors. The environmental and agricultural benefits are a significant secondary outcome of those activities.
That distinction matters because it highlights an opportunity rather than a problem. Instead of diminishing or discouraging recreational hunting, governments should be asking how this existing effort can be better targeted to deliver even greater public benefit.
No serious stakeholder suggests recreational hunting is the only management tool required. Equally, no serious discussion should ignore the very substantial contribution it already makes or the potential to increase that contribution through sensible policy settings, improved access and genuine collaboration with the recreational hunting community.
A better conversation
Illegal hunting deserves condemnation.
Trespass deserves prosecution.
Landholders deserve support.
Wild deer unquestionably create management challenges across parts of Victoria, and those challenges require evidence-based, coordinated responses.
But public policy should be informed by evidence rather than rhetoric, by expertise rather than lobbying alone, and by balanced reporting that distinguishes between criminal behaviour and the tens of thousands of licensed Victorian hunters who obey the law, respect landholders, and make a significant contribution to managing wild deer across the state.
Report illegal hunting:
https://www.gma.vic.gov.au/enforcement/report-illegal-hunting-online/report-illegal-hunting
Further reading:
The Arthur Rylah Institute deer density study https://ssaavic.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Abundance-of-deer-in-Victoria-Regional-and-statewide-estimates-of-deer-density-and-their-impact-on-vegetation-Cally-and-Ramsey-2023.pdf
Victorian Deer Control Strategy https://ssaavic.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/FINALVicDeerControlStrategy-June-2021.pdf
Deer harvest data – 2025 https://ssaavic.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Victorian-deer-harvest-Estimates-2025-FINAL.pdf
Information about the unprotection of wild deer on private property https://www.gma.vic.gov.au/hunting/deer/where-to-hunt/fact-sheets/unprotection-of-deer-on-private-property-faq
