Getting to Grips with Farmed-Deer Escapes

Forest and Bird, Issue 307, 1 February 2003, Page 39

Getting to Grips with Farmed-Deer Escapes

_ Forest and

Bird staff.

ANNE GRAEME.

D eer are a huge threat to native forests, grazing palatable seedlings and preventing regeneration. Every year, new deer populations become established in previously deer-free forests, some deliberately introduced by unscrupulous hunters, and others accidentally established when farmed deer escape. A recent Landcare Research study mapped 166 new populations of deer. Of those where the source of the population was known, more than half had come from farm escapes. So it is prudent that Forest and Bird should ask for stringent controls on farmed deer under the Resource Management Act. In the last few months, Hastings and Gisborne local councils have, at Forest and Bird’s instigation, included

strict fencing standards in their District Plans. They also require mandatory identification tags for farmed deer. Gisborne District Council, where deer farming is a permitted activity, will in future oblige new deer farms to be notified to the council. This makes sense, as standards are of little use if the Council isn't even aware of the existence of the deer farm! These measures are useful precautions to reduce the invasion of yet more pests into our beleaguered native forests, and they may set useful precedents for other Forest and Bird branches to put forward to their District Plans.