Leaked report grades states on feral deer control, with NSW and Tasmania rated red
The Invasive Species Council said on 28 October 2026 that it had been leaked a national review of feral deer management, which it said some state governments had blocked from public release. The Council's post describes the document as the unpublished feral deer report.
The document is a report card that rates Australian jurisdictions on their control of feral deer, which are deer that have spread into the wild from farms and introduced herds. It was produced by the National Vertebrate Pest Coordinators and assesses each jurisdiction in four categories using a traffic-light system of red, yellow and green. According to the report card, New South Wales and Tasmania received red in all four categories. Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory each received three reds and a yellow.
South Australia was the only jurisdiction to receive a green rating, which it earned in all four categories. The report card states high confidence that the state decreased deer abundance, their distribution, and their environmental and agricultural impacts. South Australia launched a statewide feral deer eradication plan in 2022.
The ratings are measured against Australia's National Feral Deer Action Plan, which covers 2022 to 2027. The plan aims to limit the spread of feral deer into new areas and reduce their harm to agriculture and communities. Governments endorsed it in 2023, and the report card is the first assessment since that endorsement.
The report describes feral deer as one of Australia's "most rapidly increasing invasive pests", and estimates they cost more than $91 million every year in production loss and management time. A draft of the plan, published in 2023, estimated the national population at between 1 and 2 million.
Six species are established in Australia: chital, fallow, hog, red, rusa and sambar. Well-established populations are concentrated in south-eastern Australia, where densities are highest, with smaller localised populations in South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
The Council's release on the leak said more than 2.6 million hectares of public and private land were subject to feral deer control in 2024-25, and more than 32,000 deer were removed. Reece Pianta, the Council's advocacy manager, said the unpublished report had been leaked to his organisation and described deer as "the next feral pig". For comparison, early results reported by the ABC showed hunters in Queensland culled more than 1.11 million feral pigs in 2024.
