Council Set To Install Deer Warning Signs

Illawarra Mercury

Monday August 6, 2007

By JODIE MINUS

WOLLONGONG City Council will install roadside warning signs to caution motorists about feral deer.

The move comes after a man was seriously injured when his motorbike struck a deer in Figtree.

The man in his 30s was travelling along O'Briens Rd on Wednesday night when his bike struck the animal.

Spokeswoman Susan Rigby said the council would install the signs along the most at-risk roads.

"The population at this time of year swells as the deer move in to urban areas to feed and breed," she said. It is estimated that up to 5000 feral deer are running rampant in the escarpment and around their traditional home base in the Royal National Park.

On Friday, Climate Change, Environment and Water Minister Phil Koperberg announced that the State Government would ramp up its deer culling program by 50 per cent.

Mr Koperberg said culling operations in the park would be expanded to include areas in the Illawarra for the first time.

The National Parks and Wildlife Service will administer the program.

It will employ expert marksmen to shoot the deer on the escarpment from Stanwell Tops to Mount Kembla.

Department of Environment and Climate Change spokesman John Dengate said the deer population had flourished because its natural predator, the tiger, did not exist in Australia.

"The deer have an extremely good food supply in the park and the adjoining areas and since the 1850s they have spread all the way down to Batemans Bay," he said.

"They are an efficient animal that breeds well and they do very nicely in Australia, unfortunately."

Mr Dengate said the department had looked "exhaustively" at options to control the deer.

Although shooting them was labour intensive, it was the most humane response.

The operation is costly because of the small number of people accredited as shooters.

The shoots can only take place at night and can't be done in school holidays.

The targeted section of the park has to be closed for the shoot.

A Wollongong City Council deer management plan announced in September has since become the Pest Animal Management Strategy. It is being developed by a raft of organisations, including the Rural Lands Protection Board, the Animal Welfare League and the RSPCA.

© 2007 Illawarra Mercury

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