Horns locked over deer rules

Horns locked over deer rules

A deer farmer on the Limestone Coast has raised the plight of farmers like him, who are fighting a hidden battle against illegal hunters and attempting to comply with “impractical” laws on tagging, introduced after deer were declared for control in South Australia. It’s hard to talk about the farmer and his farm without giving too much away.

He wants to remain anonymous, which is why The SE Voice has given him the alias ‘Mr X’. It’s why you will not see his face or know his name or know how many deer are on his farm. That is not because of the possibility of any consequence to himself but to his animals – if he is named, he fears poachers may learn more about his deer and his farm and kill more of them.

This would mean finding more beheaded corpses of his deer, animals with which he has built relationships, named, reared, and recognises from characteristics unseen to outsiders. Mr X said there’s even the chance that people may recognise his animals from photos of them. It’s also because Mr X stresses that other farmers share similar burdens no less severe than his own, whether it be battling poachers or complying with new, “impractical” farmed deer laws.

For these reasons, The SE Voice will be as light as it can on describing Mr X and his farm – because there’s the chance that he may pay the price for speaking up.

Mr X is a lone farmer living and working on the land, at a farm with his wife that has been in his family for generations, which turned to deer farming after much of the farm was burnt down on Ash Wednesday. In addition, Mr X is dealing with a potentially life-threatening medical situation, but he does not like to make a big deal of his health.

Alongside the daily stresses of running a 1000-acre deer farm, he is navigating issues of “impossible” compliance and the illegal poaching of his animals, an issue that seemingly has no resolution. Local stories tell of hunters in plots of land adjacent to deer farms waiting for an escapee, with the animals quickly brought down and beheaded for a trophy.

Sometimes, the hunters do not wait for the deer to escape – they see a buck and bring it down on a farm and pull it outside the property’s boundaries. Or they just prepare the animal on private property, leaving headless corpses for farmers – some of whom have the animals as pets – to find. This is all illegal, but Mr X says the police have told him there is not a lot they can do to find the perpetrators.

He insists that this is a common problem, which anecdotally appears to be common knowledge. The Department of Primary Industries and Regions (PIRSA) is aware of the problem. “When feral deer numbers are substantially reduced, there will be less illegal hunting, and so landholders will not be impacted to the extent they are now,” PIRSA states.

Adding to the difficulty, Mr X has historically maintained his farm, which includes kilometres of dense scrub, either alone or with the help of another man he will not name. Having just undergone major surgery to fight cancer, Mr X has been assisted on his deer farm more lately by the man.

As an aside, there’s another issue at play here. Two years ago, the Landscape South Australian Act was updated to crack down on the quality of fencing and tagging on deer farms, after deer were declared for control. The Limestone Coast Landscape Board is now upping the ante to enforce the legislation. Tags, it said, ensure feral deer can be distinguished from farm escapees, which gain up to seven days’ protection if they escape a farm onto a neighbouring property.

However, Mr X says the wording of the tagging policy is confusing, with two conditions seemingly needing to be met and multiple parties notified before a deer gets its week of protection. He says that he aims to tag all his deer every year, but it is not always possible.

One problem here is that deer, especially males, fight and kill one another when brought together and can only be tagged at certain times of the year when the velvet on their antlers has not hardened. For Mr X, who raises fallow and red deer, the tried and tested time for this is November, but PIRSA argues deer can be tagged during other periods as well.

However, when he recently attempted to tag during another period, one of his prized deer was gored to death by another deer. Deer are not the easiest animal to bring in, either – especially on land filled with dense scrub, where for “everyone deer that you notice, six or seven have already noticed you”. There’s also the chance a tag falls off what was a previously tagged, farmed deer, and of a feral deer turning up at a farm during the rut.

Mr X, who has a zero-tolerance policy for feral deer, says he is not alone in calling the new tagging protocol “impractical” but says he is open to a sensible compromise. “These changes have been drawn up by people who do not have any firsthand experience farming deer,” Mr X said. “And it’s only with experience that you have knowledge. “Just telling everyone they have to ear tag their deer really serves no useful purpose for reducing the number of feral deer.”

Since the changes were made to the Act, the Limestone Coast Landscape Board has been updating deer farmers of their new obligations, “allowing them time to implement ear tagging and fencing requirements”, the board says.

The next step in this process has been to conduct farmed deer inspections. “Landscape officers aim to achieve voluntary compliance by working with deer farmers to reduce the considerable damage escaped deer and feral deer cause to our environment and agricultural industries,” Limestone Coast Landscape Board operations manager Mike Stevens told The SE Voice.

Mr X knows how impractical tagging an entire farm’s worth of deer is, but he has until October 24 to have all his deer tagged, despite previously being warned he would only have 60 days to comply. By his own admission, Mr X says he knew changes to the legislation were coming for two years, but a recent visit by a landscape officer was the first time he had been told that he would need to comply.

“All registered deer farmers have been communicated to numerous times in regard to the changes of the Act and that farmed deer inspections were to be taking place,” Mr Stevens said. “Given the prior two-year notification period providing substantial time to tag animals, a 60-day notification period was an initial consideration. “However, October 24 has been identified as appropriate.”

When contacted for a response, Mr X said this was the first time he’s heard of the new date for compliance. Mr Stevens sad the timeframe was based on feedback from domestic deer farmers in the Limestone Coast and on the review of the deer industry’s own best practice guidelines.

“The tagging of domestic deer by October 24 is appropriate as deer will naturally lose their hard antler over this period so it will ensure high levels of safety to the farmers when handling deer and maintaining high standards of animal welfare when deer are confined in yards,” Mr Stevens said.

When we asked Mr X why he has not mentioned his health to either PIRSA or the Limestone Coast Landscape Board, Mr X says it is irrelevant. But Mr X says complying with the laws is more stressful than dealing with his cancer. However, he emphasises that his condition makes his struggle no more severe than any other farmer’s.

Some of these farmers have seen the policy, which states all deer on farms must be tagged, as so impractical they are putting down their own pet deer that are not ear tagged. The Limestone Coast Landscape Board told The SE Voice that Mr X should “work with his local landscape officer regarding his concerns”. “Multiple properties have been inspected with a number of properties complying with the requirement to tag,” Mr Stevens said.

“Feedback from deer farmers (indicates) up to 100 deer can be tagged per day with the appropriate facilities.”

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