Professional and recreational shooters have vowed to continue to put pressure on the state government for greater involvement in the management of feral deer in SA.
The comments follow a deer community forum held in Naracoorte last month, after which forum spokesperson Jake Nicholson, Mount Gambier, sent the meeting resolutions to the Limestone Coast Landscape Board.
Stock Journal has seen a copy of the eight-page response from the LC Landscape Board to the resolutions, which Mr Nicholson says are "disappointing" as they do not give any major considerations to any of the points and they were continuing "business as usual".
He says he will continue to garner support from organisations with similar views, including farmers and the Conservation and Hunting Alliance of SA.
"This fight is only just beginning in trying to see more stringent control of deer, rather than eradication, to ensure the public is not at risk from aerial culling and then improve the helicopter practices, give greater involvement of ground shooting into the plan and for recreational hunters to have greater access to public land," he said.
"A number of farmers have contacted me with concerns about the use of helicopters, but they are so reluctant to speak up for fear they will be the next one in the Landscape Board's sights for an action order."
Mr Nicholson said the government's plan to ban bow and crossbow hunting was hypocritical if it was on humane grounds, when its own aerial culling program sees deer chased around and then shot up to 4 or 5 times.
CHASA president Graham Stopp says they accept the need to manage feral deer, but don't believe there is a chance of eradication.
CHASA are also against aerial culling for the huge waste of a valuable resource, especially given the cost of living squeeze.
"From the board's perspective, aerial culling is easy - enlisting a helicopter and a shooter, but we are saying that there needs to be a more coordinated approach, especially involving local clubs and individual hunters in the plan," Mr Stopp said.
"Macro Meats have said they would be willing to step in with some coolers and 40 deer adds up to a tonne of meat, so if they are telling us they have shot 6500 deer at $45/kg [the cost of venison], it is a lot of money."
Mr Stopp believes it is inhumane deer are being peppered with lead shot from the helicopter, rather than a clean shot to the head.
He says a better way forward may be to introduce a bounty similar to foxes to entice more ground shooters.
"If there was a $100 price tag on a deer, the problem would go away, because you would have every lawyer and doctor and maybe reporter chasing them," he said.
Landscape Board general manager Steve Bourne says they have been subsidising commercial meat harvesting in the Keilira area. More than 2000 deer have been harvested in the past three years.
He says the difficulty is the bulk of feral deer are culled in heavily vegetated, inaccessible areas where carcass retrieval is not practicable.
There are also food safety requirements for the harvesting of meat that make it impractical for carcasses to be sold for consumption by people or pets.
"We are exploring options to expand this program, however aerial culling will remain the primary effective tool to drive feral deer numbers down quickly," he said.
Mr Bourne also defended shooting deer from a low flying helicopter, saying science had shown "very good welfare outcomes by reducing pursuit time and a quicker death".
Opposition agriculture spokesperson Nicola Centofanti says they support the feral deer culling program and even aerial culling, if it is done humanely and safely.
"Aerial culling is only one tool in the tool box, and should not be used in isolation for the control of feral deer," she said.
"It should be complemented by and used alongside other methods for control, such as the use of commercial, professional and recreational hunters, and it should be the landowner's choice as to which tools they use to manage the deer numbers on their property."
Instead of a "big stick approach", Dr Centofanti believes the state government should work with individual landowners to use a range of control tools for feral deer.
