This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Victoria has proposed deregulating the taxidermied deer industry as part of a draft management strategy to control the increasing feral deer population.

Deer are protected under Victorian wildlife laws along with other introduced species like pheasants and European quails and partridges, meaning they cannot be hunted without a licence.

According to regulations under the Wildlife Act, only taxidermists who pay the annual $588 licence fee and report all their stock to the government are legally allowed to preserve them.

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In the draft management strategy released this month, the Victorian government has suggested removing the need for deer taxidermy to be licenced as part of a suite of measures to reduce both deer populations and red tape affecting the deer-hunting industry.

Lilydale-based taxidermist Dennis Grundy is the president of the Australian Association of Wildlife Artists. He said it was already common for unlicensed or backyard taxidermists to stuff and mount their own hunting trophies and removing the licencing requirements was not likely to change matters — except by saving licenced taxidermists like him $588 a year.

Victoria is the only state in Australia which requires a taxidermy licence for processing deer. In other states the licensing requirements are restricted to native animals and birds — although not fish, an exemption Grundy says has always puzzled him.

“You don’t need a licence to process foxes, goats, camels, donkeys, anything like that that was introduced,” he told Guardian Australia. “Deer is unusual and we are the only state [where] you need a licence to process deer.”

Grundy said that turning deer into hunting trophies was the majority of his business and he could not keep up with demand.

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He said the entire process, from skinning and curing the hide to fitting it on a mannequin and adding “cosmetic” touches such as glass eyes, took nine months.

“It’s a trophy for the hunter,” he said. “Some guys like to have their trophies mounted, some guys don’t, they just keep the antlers.”

There are more than 34,000 licenced deer hunters in Victoria. In 2017 they killed 106,275 deer, of which 84% were sambar deer (Cervus unicolour) and 15% were fallow deer (Dama dama).

The other species main species in Victoria are red deer (Cervus elaphus) and hog deer (Axis porcinus).

According to the Game Management Authority, the number of deer harvested in Victoria has increased by an average of 15,000 every year since 2009 and the average number of deer killed for each day of stalking or hunting had also increased, which indicated a growing feral deer population.

The department of environment, land, water and planning (DELWP) estimated the combined population of the four main deer species as between several hundred thousand and 1m.

The draft strategy proposes allowing land managers to kill deer that are causing damage to public land without a permit. It also recommends dividing the state into different management zones, including small isolated areas where all deer can be eradicated, and “resource management” areas tailored to the $13m hunting industry.

A DELWP spokesman said the strategy “provides a clear and coordinated approach to deer management in Victoria”.

It is open for public comment until 29 October.