The deer issue is getting worse and something needs to be done

Sam Hicks – Murrindindi Food and Wine

MURRINDINDI Food and Wine Inc secretary, Sam Hicks explained that she contacted a large number of businesses across the shire to find out their challenges in time for the recent visit by the Small Business Commissioner.

“One of the common themes was deer,” she said, with vignerons saying that deer ate their crop, and farmers needing to pay to repair or install new fences.

Many beef farmers across the north east of Victoria are finding that there are ….

Cindy McLeish MP

MEMBER for Eildon Cindy McLeish said, “The deer numbers have absolutely exploded, and the government has been poor at managing this growth.”

She said, “The destruction’s one thing, and people have known about the destruction, but now more and more people are seeing and having collisions with deer, and there’s more and more dead deer on the side of the road…

The government has been really slack in dealing with this. It’s been an….

Karine Haslam – Eildon

KARINE Haslam from Eildon Events said, “This is ridiculous with the deer.

They really are out of control and there is not a night that goes by without somebody hitting one on the Eildon Back Road and the Front Road, even in town it is incredible.

Front yards, in the heart of town and the deer are….

Wendy Dare – Eildon

Wendy Dare from Eildon provided the following statement, “When the agapanthus are not just eaten, but chewed down into the root, when plants in your garden are chewed and broken, when your pot plants are dragged around and the contents chewed, only one suspect here, the deer.

“When you walk or drive around, regardless of time of day, what do you see, the deer. Now in paddocks you can see the deer, looking back….

Sonja Herges – Murrindindi locale

Sonja Herges from Sedona Estate said of the deer issues, “We’ve been impacted now for a number of years. It became a prominent problem for us around 2018 or 2019.

2019 was the first time that we actually had deer in our Merlot vineyards during the day, eating leaves.

It is the vineyard that is closest to the cellar door and the parking area, so very concerning that animals,….

Peter Ingham – Murrindindi locale

Peter Ingham has a combination of hill country and river flats, with the hill; country bordering onto the state forest.

He said, “What we’ve noticed for the first time in the last year or so is that there are a lot of deer coming down from the hills onto the country that they wouldn’t normally visit…

They’re coming down because they’ve got no feed in the bushland. Even the blackberries have been dying up there, so you know there’s nothing for…