A group of Limestone Coast landholders have shared how the aerial culling program has been a game-changer in removing large numbers of feral deer, with their pastures rebounding and native vegetation regenerating.
They also feel a lot safer with far fewer illegal poachers wandering around their properties and say there are less deer sightings by road users.
This was just a few of the positives that SA Primary Industries Minister Clare Scriven heard at a meeting last week at Boolapuckee, Kingston SE, facilitated by the Limestone Coast Landscapes Board.
Meeting host Peter Rasheed had been keen to meet with the Minister after a wild deer community forum in Naracoorte last month had seen the views of the meeting from largely recreational and professional hunters strongly publicised.
The Landscape Board had been accused of being heavy-handed, forcing landholders into signing up to allow the helicopter to shoot over their properties, but its says an action order is the last resort for compliance.
Mr Rasheed says a strong approach is needed to ensure a few landholders aren't providing "deer-safe havens", jeopardising the chance to rid the landscape of deer for everyone else.
"Eradication is the only way. If we just talk control like weed control, it is a waste of time," he said.
He says they have erected more than seven kilometres of high fencing to keep deer out of their paddocks, but it was only now that he felt eradication could be possible.
Since the state's Feral Deer Eradication Program started in May 2022, nearly 12,000 feral deer have been removed from the landscape, with 6500 of these from the Limestone Coast.
In 2023, culling activities took place on more than one million hectares - about 35 per cent of the Limestone Coast. This included 20 private forestry plantations, 83 parks and forestry reserves and more than 200 private properties with the approval of land managers.
Blackford farmers Gavin and Tammy Parker said they felt like they were fighting a losing battle controlling deer on their 1600ha property, but the expansion of the aerial cull has made a huge difference in reducing the deer coming in from the north.
In 2018, they shot 135 deer on their property. In 2019, it was 118, but in 2020, after a ground shooting program with neighbours, the number dropped to 76. In 2023, the number was only 45.
"No matter how many we shot they kept coming," Mr Parker said.
"It was like a tap was turned on and kept overflowing and we were just mopping up on the floor, but we finally feel like the tap is being turned off.
"They just need to keep nailing those last ones. If they don't keep on top of it with the aerial cull, we will be back to where we were in only a couple of years."
Mr Parker said deer were eating lucerne shoots ahead of sheep rotating back to the paddock, but the big thing has been his family's safety is less threatened.
"Not having as many spotlights shining in your bedroom window at all hours of the night or hearing gun shots or finding a cow shot is huge," he said.
Nick Radford, Lucindale, said he knew he had a problem when driving onto an irrigated paddock on his Waterfield property at 3am while carting water to help extinguish the Lucindale fire in 2021.
He found deer thick under the pivot, counting at least 50 running away.
After that he signed up to the aerial culling program and within a couple of years, says it is now rare to see a feral deer, although there are still "a few around".
"I had some mates who used to come down and do a bit of shooting for sport and meat, but they said it was a waste of time, only seeing one or two at the most," he said.
"Our water licence has been cut in half, so we can't afford to be feeding animals that are not our own."
Minister Scriven said she was strongly supportive of the eradication program, which is funded by the state and federal government as well as landscape levies and the livestock industry, and said it had been hugely successful in its first two years.
"The program's sustained and co-ordinated culling efforts provide our best chance of achieving eradication of feral deer and protecting our state's environment and primary production sector from this destructive pest," she said.
"The eradication of feral deer is vitally important to ensure SA's $17.3 billion primary industries and agribusiness sector, which supports 71,000 jobs across the state, continues to thrive."
She said compared to eastern state populations, SA feral deer numbers were still considered low enough to eradicate the pest.
An independent cost benefit analysis indicates the program will have a net benefit of $525 million over a 10-year period.
