The deer hunters Landscaping Contractor
It is 11pm. I’m sitting in the passenger seat of a ute peering
through the gloom across a small grass paddock edged by light
brush. The tension in the vehicle is almost palpable. Standing
behind in the ute tray are National Parks and Wildlife Service
ranger Craig Shephard and Steve, a professional shooter employed by
the Rural Lands Protection Board.
Shephard is methodically tracking a spotlight with a red beam
back and forth along the edge of the paddock when he spots some
movement. Suddenly a juvenile male deer breaks from the cover.
There is a brief sequence of hide and seek with the spotlight until
Steve, who does not want to be indentified by his surname, is
absolutely confident of his shot.
The crash of the rifle is shockingly loud, even from inside the
cab, and despite the high-tech ear-defenders we all wear.
Instantly, the deer’s legs buckle and it falls to the ground. A
second deer emerges from the brush, disoriented without its
partner. Within a minute or so it is also lying dead in the grass,
killed instantly with a single shot to the head from Steve’s
rifle.
Once I’m permitted to leave the ute - there are strict protocols
governing who is allowed where during shooting - Shephard beckons
me over to examine the carcass. He checks the deer is dead, then
Steve steps forward, takes a knife from his belt and, with a
practised movement, cuts the animal’s throat to bleed the
carcass.
The two support vehicles arrive and an RSPCA inspector, Slade
Macklin, examines the deer to confirm the kill has been humane.
Once he is satisfied, the carcasses are hauled to the hydraulic
tail-lift of the recovery ute, dragged onto the tray and covered
with a tarpaulin to shield them from the squeamish or curious.
To the deer culling team it’s just another day - or night - at
the office. Since 2002 more than 900 deer have been shot at an
average of seven a night in a slick, efficient operation that has a
constant emphasis on safety and humane killing.
But it stirs deep emotions among supporters and opponents alike.
Some see only a feral animal that is wreaking environmental havoc
in a huge area stretching from the Royal National Park to Ulladulla
in the south and west into suburbs such as Sutherland and Grays
Point. The deer, they argue, deserve no more sympathy than cane
toads.
Others argue they have as much right to remain as human settlers
do, even proposing they be left as a tourist attraction.
Often, this strong emotional response is born from a potent mix
of urban dwellers’ abhorrence of guns and bloodshed allied with the
“cuteness” of this particular feral pest. (Steve tells me he never
meets opposition to culling feral animals when he is working in the
bush.)
There is no denying Indonesian Rusa deer are beautiful animals.
The females are graceful, elegant creatures with grey-brown coats,
and the full-grown stags are impressive beasts sporting fearsome
antlers. And while they are not the same breed depicted by Walt
Disney, associations with Bambi are hard to resist when you see a
family group.
In 1906 the deer were introduced into the Royal National Park, a
wilderness area covering more than 15,000 hectares in Sydney’s
south. The trustees of the park thought the deer would make an
entertaining diversion for visitors and corralled a small number in
an area dubbed “Deer Park”. It didn’t take long for them to escape
and begin breeding.
Since then, the number of deer has fluctuated, often as a result
of natural events such as bushfires. One study eight years ago
estimated the deer population of the Royal National Park at 2500. A
more recent park estimate is that number may have risen to about
3000.
But while producing a definitive figure on the number of Rusa
deer in the park may be difficult, the damage being done to the
native bush is beyond dispute for most experts.
Bushfires at the end of 2001 brought the issue to a head,
Shephard says. “The fire opened up substantial areas of the park to
further deer invasion,” he says. “Deer particularly like new
regrowth. When you have a fire go through, the native vegetation
resprouts all over the place and becomes much more palatable to the
deer, but those areas are also much more fragile and because they
are cloven-hoofed animals they start the erosion process.”
Remnant rainforest within the park is particularly vulnerable.
“Eventually, in maybe 10, 20 or 30 years’ time that entire
vegetation community will change to more of a weedy community and
all the animals, birds and insects that depend on that ecosystem
would be displaced or die.”
And while much of this damage occurs in the more inaccessible
areas of the park, visible only to park rangers and the occasional
adventurous bushwalker or cyclist, the deer also make themselves
felt in the urbanised hamlets of Bundeena and Maianbar.
A walk around the tiny communities reveals all manner of deer
protection devices from locals desperate to preserve their gardens.
These range from unusually high fences to complicated arrangements
of string and wire hung with old compact discs in a bid to scare
off the marauders. Locals say it’s not unusual to spot up to 50
deer in several large groups around the streets at night, munching
on hedges, trees and any other handy vegetation. Even more
disturbing are reports of headless deer carcasses found around
spots such as Bundeena, Maianbar and Helensburgh. These are animals
that have fallen prey to groups of unlicensed illegal hunters who
target Rusa deer, often using crossbows.
It’s the same story south of the “Royal” where fresh colonies of
deer have established themselves along the Illawarra escarpment,
wreaking havoc among the gardens of the households there and
causing a recent spate of car and motorbike accidents.
“To the deer, your garden is just like a lolly shop is to kids,”
says Phil Buckland, who lives at the foot of Mount Keira. “They
love all those sweet little shoots but as they get hungrier they
are eating species they didn’t eat before. The other problem is
that as the bucks’ antlers grow they rub them up and down the
trees. As soon as they do that to a young sapling that’s the end of
the sapling.”
Another local, Mary Kettle, offers me a tour of her garden,
which turns into a recitation of all the plants and shrubs that are
no longer there because of the deer. In her mind’s eye, Kettle can
see the agapanthus and geraniums that are now just bare patches in
her half-hectare block. The damage to the mulberry tree is all too
plainly visible. “You look around and there is so much missing
because of the deer,” she says. “It almost makes you want to
cry.”
Only a brave man would suggest to Kettle and Buckland that the
deer have as much right to remain as human settlers. They want
something done and they want it done now.
But the deer are not without their supporters. It is said among
Bundeena locals that if you want to split a gathering down the
middle just mention the deer problem. Passions - and tempers - run
notoriously hot around the topic and those seeking a quiet life
tend to keep their opinions to themselves.
Deer are so much part of the social landscape that they even
feature on the crest of the local RSL club and on the school’s
badge. On conditions of anonymity, one resident admitted that he
even fed the deer in his backyard - and knew of plenty of others
doing the same.
“I love my deer,” he said. “A lot of people are in favour of the
deer around here. You go to people’s houses and they have pictures
of deer on their mantelpiece. The kids love to see them. I believe
they’ll never go away so I might as well enjoy them.”
Wendy Forman, an Engadine resident and committee member of the
World League for the Protection of Animals, shares these
sentiments. “I believe they could be a tourist attraction if a
certain part of the park was set aside for the deer,” she says.
“Anything that is called an introduced species there is no pity
for. It’s like picking someone from the telephone book among all
the names and saying that person and their family are a pest, we’ll
eradicate them.
“[The deer] have been here for 100 years and they should be
given Australian citizenship rights right now.”
The National Parks and Wildlife Service is acutely aware that
maintaining public approval is vital if the culling project is to
succeed.
In particular the service’s experience in October 2000, when an
aerial cull of brumbies in the Guy Fawkes National Park turned into
a public relations disaster, has left them determined not to run
ahead of public opinion with the deer program.
Aerial culling from helicopters during the day using
semi-automatic weapons would be more efficient than the painstaking
night ground-shooting program. But daytime aerial shooting is too
upsetting for any casual observers, so there are no plans to use
the technique on the deer.
In the fickle court of public opinion, it appears most people
are happy to have feral animals removed as long as they are not
exposed to the detail. (Of course, this rule tends to apply much
less when the animal is as unprepossessing as the cane toad or
European carp.)
At the end of my night observing the shooting, there are just
two deer in the tray of the ute. The carcasses go to feed the big
cats at Mogo Zoo on the South Coast. It’s a meagre result for a
night’s work but it’s nearing the end of the deer-shooting season
when most of the animals are retreating deeper into the bush.
Shooting for this year has now ended. In February, Shephard and
his team will be back at work tracking and shooting the deer on
about 30 nights while most of us are asleep.
Shephard speaks for his team when he says he takes no pleasure
in the killing. “With the knowledge that I am doing it humanely and
as swiftly as possible and the fact I know those animals don’t
suffer, I’m comfortable with that,” he says. “We all have total
respect for the animal. They are a majestic, beautiful creature but
unfortunately they are in the wrong place.”
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