More than 137,000 deer were harvested by licensed shooters in Victoria last year, according to the newly released Estimates of the 2023 Deer Harvest in Victoria report from the state’s Game Management Authority.
The report showed an estimated 137,090 deer were harvested in 2023, an 11% increase on the 2022 results when 123,400 deer were taken.
The number of licensed hunters in the state also increased slightly to 52,321 — up from the 50,478 in 2022 — and 60% of them actively hunted throughout the year, spending an average of 10.5 days out of the year hunting and harvesting an average of 4.3 deer each.
The most commonly harvested species was sambar (106,500; 53% female), with fallow coming in second at 27,500 deer (59% being female).
The highest number of deer harvested were reported to be around the towns of Mansfield, Licola (Wellington Shire), Dargo (Wellington Shire), Omeo (East Gippsland) and Benalla.
The report also noted the 2023 deer hunting season “had the second largest estimated total harvest, and the highest since the Black Summer bushfires and the COVID-19 lockdowns”.
Since records began in 2009, the only year with a higher harvest was 2019, which had 173,784 deer taken.
Sambar deer harvest numbers were noted as being particularly high in 2023, with the report observing they “do no align with recent statewide abundance estimates” and suggesting there may be some over-estimation of the recreational deer harvest by survey respondents.
“Some of the very high daily deer harvests reported may be more reasonable for a person spotlighting as part of control activities, a hound team total, or deer hunting in a different jurisdiction (eg, New South Wales),” the report said.
“While spotlighting of deer on private property is legal (with the permission of the landholder), it is not considered as part of the recreational deer harvest and therefore would not be included (no respondents in 2023 gave spotlighting as their method).”
While firearms remained the most popular hunting method, 13,625 deer were taken by hunters with hounds in 2023 — slightly more than the 12,428 hunted with hounds in 2022.
The full Estimates of the 2023 Deer Harvest in Victoria report is available here: https://www.gma.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/1045978/FINAL_Victorian-deer-harvest-Estimates-2023.pdf
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