The feral deer population is rapidly growing and causing serious problems in many areas across the country.

The impact of deer on the environment include:

• plant species and ecological communities being seriously damage by grazing and antler rubbing
• destruction of under story and forest floor vegetation changing the structure of the forest resulting in direct and indirect impacts on native flora and fauna
• facilitating access for introduced predators by creating paths in dense vegetation
• maintaining elevated populations of wild dogs (which feed on carcasses dumped by hunters)
• competing with native herbivores
• causing erosion and impacting water quality
• trampling sensitive areas (such as alpine bogs, moss beds, wetlands) and spreading weeds
• hindering re-vegetation efforts
• potentially spreading pathogens affecting agriculture (such as foot and mouth disease) and human health (including Leptospirosis and Cryptosporidium).
• damage to a wide variety of agricultural crops and pastural systems, vineyards and plantations increasing the need for expensive fencing
• damage to infrastructure including fences and nets
• increasing number of deer - vehicle collisions and concern about driving on rural roads at night

Major issues that need to be addressed include monitoring and tracking distribution and density of deer around the regions, data on the population growth rate, costing of the impact of deer to agriculture, research into the impact on biodiversity and the environment and development of population control methods in addition to shooting