There's a strong element of propaganda here too. There are those whose interests are in dismissing the role of hunting, especially hunting by those who aren't being paid to do it. Here in NSW for example, there are those who'd prefer that hunting was banned, even if that condemned the deer to death by poisoning or starvation. It is worth pointing out that the ABC, which produced that piece, is distinctly left-leaning, and not exactly an unbiased observer..
We have legal hunting of deer on private land and in State Forests (public land which is primarily managed for production of timber) but we have massive National Parks in which large numbers of ferals live and breed, where hunting's banned and very little control takes place. We've had campaigns to try and open access to those NPs to hunting, as they are just across the border in Victoria, but all sorts of so-called greens, anti-gun and anti-hunting types stopped that.
The situation is even more ridiculous with feral horses, which are all but protected in some of the National Parks. In fact in the Alpine NP, which was shown on that piece, the numbers of horses and the damage they cause are far more apparent than those of the deer. I hunt around teh fringes of this NP, and the numbers of horses, the piles of their droppings, the damage to tracks and waterways they do, are very obvious. Woe betide you if you knock one though. Equally foolish, there are feral dogs in those same areas, but in the SFs adjoining the NP you aren't allowed to shoot them either - even though there is active 1080 (poison) baiting going on. This stuff makes no sense at all.
It really isn't that hard to manage the deer. Hunters can and do play an effective part in doing so. Let us into the NPs and we'll be happy to do it there too, limiting their current role as massive reservoirs of these and other ferals.
