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Oh deer, the ladies from Stanwell Park’s CWA branch have elicited a bit of social media chatter with their calls to urgently cull deer. As reported in the Mercury, Country Women’s Association members will debate a motion supporting the legal culling of deer across the state at CWA’s NSW conference from April 30 to May 2. The organisation’s Stanwell Park branch is proposing that the policy of the CWA of NSW shall be that deer be classified as a pest species to allow the legal culling of these animals. Most readers supported the proposal and agreed with Stanwell Park branch president Carol Pugh and shared her concern for the rise in wild deer numbers and the problems they caused farmers and the environment, and the danger posed to motorists. Read more: Stanwell Park's Country Women's Association demand 'urgent' culling of deer But Michelle Reilly is not one of them. Her comment against the proposal, on the Mercury’s Facebook page, alone elicited 49 replies. Ms Reilly, who works for WIRES, said “Pest or not no animal deserves to be culled. It will mean any idiot can get a gun or bow and arrows and inhumanely kill these animals. Horrible humans like them should be culled not the innocent animals.” Fellow reader Chris Senior responded that as a feral animal deer are not a protected species. “It is legal to hunt them now with the landholder’s permission,” he said. “Many are already targeted by archers…..declaring them a pest species would only ensure that culling would be carried out by more professional shooters. “Given their susceptibility to road or rail collision, their ravaging of native vegetation, the displacement of native species and the fact that, at certain times of the year, a big buck is a dangerous animal, it is hard to argue that culling would increase the sum of animal suffering.” Daniel Shaw added that Local Land Services, the government body charged with eradicating feral deer, was the real problem. “They inherited a world class control program and have destroyed it leaving the deer to once again become a serious problem,” Mr Shaw stated.

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