Oh deer! What a nuisance.

Increasing community awareness of deer in the Tweed

Oh deer! What a nuisance.

Increasing community awareness of deer in the Tweed

Taking Action -

MEPAAW‐NC‐01

The issue

To the surprise of majority of the public, feral deer are becoming establishing in many places across NSW and QLD. The northern rivers region from about Grafton to Tweed and west to the tableland has remained reasonably free of feral deer records, but this could soon be about to change. The issue that surrounds these pests are:

Damage to native wildlife
Weed and disease dispersal
Damage to private and public properties
Threat to members of the public

Due to their timid nature these pasts are rarely seen by the general public and many community members are either unaware or don’t believe they live in this part of the world. Tweed Landcare, with aid from a grant provided by MEPAAW, saw this as an opportunity to develop an awareness program and create a proactive management plan before the deer population becomes established.

The solution

The first step of Tweed Landcare solution to this problem was to develop an awareness program that was geared towards informing community members that they should report any sighting and how to correctly reporting deer sightings. The second step Tweed Landcare took was to develop a key stakeholder meeting group. This group covered a range of stakeholders to develop rapid response plans and long term management plans. The key outcomes from the two steps included:

Increased community awareness of the growing deer population and the correct way to report any deer sightings.
Developed a key stakeholder meeting group and the creation of short and long term management plans to overcome the growing issue and identify key movement corridors for the deer to enter Tweed Shire.

The impact

Since engaging with the community from market stalls there has been 4 official reports of deer sightings within tweed Shire and surrounding LGAs.
The development of a key stakeholder meeting group has resulted in region wide awareness programs being undertaken and the development of a specific deer management plan for the North Coast of NSW.
The awareness program was so widespread Channel 9 News Gold Coast ran a story on Tweed Landcares’ effort.