In our submission to the Parliamentary Inquiry into the Control of Invasive Animals on Crown Land we call for more funding for Parks Victoria so that it can engage professional hunters to deal with deer and other pest animals.
We see this as an important issue because:
1. Victoria’s crown land hosts around 100,000 native species, many of which are threatened with extinction (e.g. DELWP’s ‘advisory list’ identifies close to 1000 endangered, vulnerable or rare native plants).
2. Invasive animals are one of the major threats to the integrity of native ecosystems (along with invasive plants, fragmentation of ecosystems and climate change).
3. Victoria’s native species and the ecosystems on which they depend are given legal protection:
- Globally under the International Convention on Biodiversity.
- Nationally under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act.
- Statewide under the National Parks Act, the Catchment and Land Protection (CALP) Act and the Flora and Fauna Guarantee (FFG) Act, among others.