It might be a similar scenario when hearing about deer activity in Shepparton and Mooroopna.
“Wild deer would have been in the area for some time,” Australian Deer Association’s Sean Kilkenny said.
“However, given the ability to share information on social media via smartphones, we can now become aware of such things rather quickly, whereas in the past, it may have been known to a relatively few people.”
There’s been much discussion among social media users in recent months, who have reported sighting deer in bushland along the Broken and Goulburn rivers, crossing the Peter Ross-Edwards Causeway, which runs between Shepparton and Mooroopna, and near the Mooroopna Train Station.
“It is likely that they are confined to certain wildlife corridors, as that provides them with the shelter and food that they require,” Mr Kilkenny said.
“They may also be on some farm fringe that adjoins these corridors; this is where they would also be ideally controlled by a landholder looking for some free venison or by some local hunters filling their freezers and feeding their families.”
Though deer are an introduced species to Australia, there are wild, free-ranging populations of six different species in every state and territory across the country, according to the Australian Deer Association.
Four of them are Asiatic species (chital, hog, rusa and sambar) and two are European (red and fallow).
Mr Kilkenny said fallow and sambar were the species most likely to be found locally.
He said they did not pose a threat to humans.
“Their instinct is to remove themselves from an area where there are people, and they will do this subtly by walking or running into the bush,” Mr Kilkenny said.
“However, like all wildlife, you are best to leave them alone.”
When deer, or any kind of wildlife, come closer to an urban area, there can be a need for population control; however, Mr Kilkenny said deer typically had much better road sense than kangaroos, which are involved in thousands of collisions each year across Victoria, according to the RACV.
“But caution should still be applied if you see them while driving,” he said.
Have you seen a deer in the Shepparton area?
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