PARK WATCH Article December 2025 |

The inclusion of shooting in national parks is a recipe for disaster reports Meghan Lindsay, Communications Advisor

The bill to create new parks in central west Victoria wasn’t all good news. Alongside long-overdue protections came a deeply disappointing twist — a formal change to the National Parks Act 1975 allowing deer hunting in parts of our eastern and central west national parks.

This move opens 130,000 hectares of Errinundra and Snowy River national parks for most of the year and parts of Wombat-Lerderderg and Pyrenees national parks to deer hunting between May and September.

National parks exist to protect nature first and foremost. They’re places where wildlife and habitats can recover, and where people can safely explore and connect with nature. Turning them into hunting grounds undermines both purposes.

Serious safety concerns

People visit national parks to camp, bushwalk, birdwatch and immerse themselves in nature. Opening them to hunting raises serious safety concerns. Even the perception of danger would be enough for many visitors to stay away.

Sadly, the risks are real. In 2018, a man was shot and killed while mountain biking in the French Alps. Here in Victoria, there’s been at least five shooting-related injuries since 2008, including incidents in the Alpine National Park in 2020 and 2021, and in Noojee in 2024. Introducing recreational shooting into high-use public areas undermines the sense of safety people expect when they visit parks. And we already have millions of hectares of unprotected state forest in Victoria open for hunting.

More than 50 million people visit Victoria’s national parks and conservation reserves each year. These protected places are well loved because they’re safe, accessible and focused on nature.

This decision also contradicts the Greater Alpine National Parks Management Plan (2016), developed after extensive consultation and tabled in Parliament. That plan opened limited areas to hunting but excluded Snowy River and Errinundra national parks. At the time, we were told this was as far as hunting expansion would go. Now, it seems the government is backtracking.

As VNPA’s long-time Parks Protection Advocate Phil Ingamells said when that plan was released: ‘There is no evidence that recreational hunting reduces deer populations, and increased access for amateur shooters risks conflict with other park users.’

Let’s be honest, this decision isn’t about tackling the feral deer problem. If anything, it distracts from real, coordinated efforts to reduce deer numbers. What’s needed are professional, evidence-based control programs combining aerial control, accredited and supervised hunters, and long-term investment to protect sensitive habitats.

The government’s own 2021 Statewide Deer Control Strategy acknowledges recreational hunting alone doesn’t effectively control deer — a finding repeated in the National Feral Deer Action Plan 2023–28 and other reviews. The Independent Review of the Wildlife Act recommended declaring deer a pest species, but this too was ruled out by the government.

Feral deer are a serious and growing problem. They trample habitats, damage wetlands and waterways, threaten rare wildlife. They impact agriculture and cause road accidents. Other states, like South Australia, are working to eradicate feral deer strategically. Victoria should be leading those efforts, not undermining them by relying on recreational hunting as a control strategy.

If hunting proceeds, Parks Victoria will need far more rangers to maintain visitor safety. Yet funding and rangers have been gutted.

VNPA and many others in the conservation community are calling on the government to rethink this approach. Victoria needs a clear, well-funded plan to protect our most important landscapes. To tackle the feral deer crisis properly, and keep national parks for what they’re meant to be: sanctuaries for wildlife and people alike.