Annual Program Report
2025 Yarra Ranges Shire Deer Cull Across Northern Yarra
🔍 Executive Summary:
This report details the successful execution of the 2025 Yarra Ranges Shire Deer Cull program (year 2) within the Northern Yarra Landcare area encompassing Steels, Dixons and Chum Creek.
The program achieved continued success with 131 deer culled across the broader areas, producing an increase of 53 additional deer culled from the 2023 financial year.
There was continued organic expansion as more property owners learn of the program's successes; however, property participation is influenced by changes in ownership and increased accommodation usage. Approximately 150 properties across the Yarra Ranges are registered participants, although actual control efforts do vary.
The Yarra Ranges Shire program for 2025 focused on multiple areas, including Steels, Dixons & Chum Creek, Healesville, Coldstream, Yellingbo and parts of the Dandenongs, with good outcomes. They continued working with adjoining local councils and Parks Victoria to achieve greater overall results and understand that many years of effort are required to significantly reduce deer numbers damaging our environment, farming, cultural and social areas. Yarra Ranges had 38 control nights, achieving a reduction of 226 deer across all control areas. Species identified are Samba and Fallow at a 3.8:1 ratio.
🎯 Key Achievements:
Community Engagement:
An impressive 95% of property owners who originally signed up for the program are still participating. Also, an increase in the participants within Steels Creek to 23, which is a 53% increase, resulting in an overall 25% Steels Creek community participation rate, emphasising a high level of effort from the Steels Creek Landcare committee with the community for support and involvement in addressing the challenge of deer overpopulation
Communication and Shooter Behaviour:
Participating property owners expressed a high degree of satisfaction with the behaviour and communication exhibited by the professional shooter, fostering positive relationships and trust within the community, although the general feeling is that he is stretched thin covering such a large area, including other councils.
Common Reasons for Culling:
Property owners shared common motivations for participating, including the reduction of the deer population for environmental, biosecurity and community benefits, and the strategic goal of minimising increasing numbers of illegal shooters entering the area. For some of the more recent property additions, illegal shooters entering the area have been a strong factor in signing up for the program.
Efficiency in Timeframe:
The cull achieved a good reduction of deer over the year across the broader Northern Yarra Landcare area. All deer were removed and sent for processing as premium dog food to ensure no waste.
Cost efficiency:
Excluding overheads; The Yarra Ranges Shire has one of the lowest field $ costs per head, sitting at $283. Other government bodies can be as high as $700, with contributing factors such as difficult terrain, smaller areas, and different contractors' charge-out rates.
💡 Recommendations & Opportunities for Improvement - COMPLETED:
The last report had 3 opportunities for improvement, which I'm proud to say were accomplished:
Grouping properties for access: enabling ease of tracking deer to cull across property boundaries.
Extended Timeframes between shootings: to enable more deer to return into the area without disturbance, and therefore, more opportunity to cull larger numbers.
Larger Cull Area: This is partly linked with point 1, to enable more effective culling results.
Four recommendations also advanced in the right direction:
Collaboration with Yarra Ranges Shire - several meetings held to get a program update, challenges, successes (both Yarra Ranges and other government bodies) and what we are seeing locally.
Expanding consultation into Dixon Creek: Additional properties signed up for the program
Collaboration with private cullers: Some discussions have begun to provide options for private landholders. Contact names may be available soon for private landholders to make their assessment on the future engagement of their culling services.
Community Consultation: Some progress in this area, reaching out to specific property owners aiming to make a larger "grouping" of properties to attain a high cull number.
🗺️ Property Participation Snapshot
👉 Fun Fact: over 38% (46) of active properties registered in the Yarra Ranges Deer Cull program are in the Northern Yarra Area (Steels, Dixons, Chum Creek). What a fantastic effort all!!
🦌 FY25 Cull Performance
Since Program Inception, July 2023 to June 2025 (2 years)
→ Total Culled: 881 animals across Shire of Yarra Ranges
→ Deer Ave growth is 15% to 24% per year 1 2. Therefore, the estimated avoided population growth in our local backyard (Northern Yarra Landcare area) over the next 10 years: @ 15% growth = min 3,564
→ Total culled across Shire Of Yarra Ranges and 4 cross-border council areas: >4,000.
→Estimated avoided population growth across the Shire and border areas in the next 10 years: 16,182
🌿 Environmental Impact
Vegetation Recovery:
Significant impacts are still experienced unless the site is fenced off
Consequences like soil erosion, native bird nesting loss (Lyre Bird nests), drying of wet forest increasing bush fire risks are still evident from deer browsing; particularly sensitive areas like the Dandenongs and local creeks within our own area.
Pasture & Flora Preservation:
If the 226 deer in the Northern Yarra Landcare area weren’t culled, then:
Daily consumption: they would still be consuming ~2712 kg (8 5' hay bales) of pasture/vegetation every day
Annual consumption: ~1 million kg of grasses, vines, roses, and native vegetation,
Equivalent Annual Round Hay Bales: 2,500 five-foot round bales or 75 semi-trailer truck loads of hay per year!!!
Future impact in 10 years if the 226 deer weren’t culled:
Future 10 year population projection with an annual growth rate @ 15%: The 226 deer herd would grow to 3564 deer, consuming 15 million kg per year.
Equivalent Annual Round Hay Bales: 88,650 five foot round bales or 1,182 semi-trailer truck loads of hay per year!!!
Cull Justification: These metrics alone support economic and environmental arguments for sustained control.
⚠️ Key Challenges
Funding Pressure: → Reduction in state grants to councils poses major delivery risks to achieve an "annual" 40% reduction in herd numbers, which will continue to be a major factor in the 2026 FY due to further funding reductions.
Illegal Shooting: → Landowners have reported an increase in illegal shooting from the roadside or directly on their property. There are specific “trouble” spots where local residents and property owners are experiencing this issue far too often.
Program Expansion: → It is challenging to expand the program due to a limited budget, even though there is an increasing number of community members wanting to participate.
Private Land Access: → Some landowners have ethical or logistical barriers to lethal control
Land Use Shifts: → Accommodation-focused properties often de-prioritise participation
Drought conditions: → With the drier conditions this year, we've all seen a substantial increase in numbers that have come down from the hills looking for food. Along with the increased pressures on our farm pastures, destroying our private gardens, orchards and vegi patches, there have also been quite a few vehicle impacts in the area - 5 just in Steels Creek Rd that I know of
👉 Recommendations:
Continue with organic growth in strategic areas as more properties provide:
flexibility for the culling activities to track their movements and move across many adjoining properties
When the deer congregate on other culling program properties, it provides the opportunity to reach higher cull numbers with a lower $ cost per head.
2. Lower budgets received from the state government will result in a culler not visiting your property as it's just not possible to personally visit every property on the list; however, by following the strategy recommendation above:
The overall objective of reducing numbers is forecast to be achieved
A higher cull rate is targeted for the area
A Lower cost per head (better bang for $ spent delivered by the council from state government funding) based on where the most deer are spotted/located on authorised properties at any given time.
3. Private Cullers: Continue discussions with other cullers to provide options for private landholders that either don’t want to join the program or want additional culling activities for deer or other pest species. Contact names may be available soon for private landholders to make their assessment on the future engagement of private culling services.
4. Continue collaboration with the Shire and discussions with other groups/communities to gain further knowledge on successful programs.
5. Investigate options to deter illegal shooting such as gauging support for setting up a local neighbourhood watch program within “trouble” locations
🤝 Community Contribution
“The Council couldn’t have achieved such impactful outcomes without the support of Landcare Group members, local volunteers, and key community stakeholders/property owners. Their ongoing involvement is both essential and deeply appreciated.”
Your continued support is vital to the program that sets out to achieve higher cull rates each year to ultimately produce all the positive benefits around pasture, gardens & vehicle impacts…particularly once we reach a 40% reduction in deer numbers annually both here and the broader state culling activities.
📘 Conclusion:
The success of the 2025 Deer Cull program is a testament to the power of community stewardship and local collaboration. With 131 deer removed from the Northern Yarra region, participating properties played a crucial role in protecting over 1 million kilograms of vegetation—the equivalent of 75 truckloads of hay spared from grazing pressure. For landowners, this means restored pastures, fewer garden invasions, and reduced vehicle collisions.
At a field cost of just $283 per head, the program delivers unmatched value compared to alternatives. Continued involvement and strategic property grouping not only lower operational costs with reduced government budgets but maximise environmental gains. Together, we are preserving landscapes, improving biosecurity, and reclaiming our rural amenity—one season at a time.
More information is available on the Northern Yarra Landcare website, covering:
Key Growth Insights
Samba Deer Impact - Comparison to Livestock
Minimum Annual Cull Rates to Halt Population Growth
Management Implications, and an infographic showing the dramatic increase in deer population since 1996
Evidence of deer on our property has diminished over the past two years - FP
Culling team background
There are many professional culling teams/companies contracted to various local governments and state bodies across Victoria or working as individuals for property owners. The team assigned to the Steels Creek area for the 2025 program has over 10 years of experience as a professional culling company, is a local identity of over 20 years, and has removed >3,000 deer from the environment to process the meat for premium pet food.
They have also culled deer within parks surrounded by suburbia, utilised by many other councils and regional police to put down injured animals on the roadside and is well aware of biosecurity issues with specific properties such as wineries.
It’s therefore not surprising that the skill set these teams need to demonstrate is much more than just simply shooting a deer, as it’s essential to have a high level of professionalism encompassing approachability with great communication skills for the entire end-to-end process to work well for all parties involved.
Want to be part of a future deer cull?
You can contact Yarra Ranges Shire directly
OR
Email Steels Creek Landcare @ steelscreeklandcare@gmail.com, who will forward on your details to Yarra Ranges Deer Cull Program
The benefits of emailing Steels Creek Landcare are:
You will be part of a private Deer Cull participant-only group list
receive notifications for: updates, culler is in the area, progress or issues via our WhatsApp group
Receive 2 email updates: 6 months and the end-of-year report
End of year 2 min Survey to guide the program on what’s working well and areas in need of improvement
Note: Your local Landcare committees are community volunteers working to improve the area we love and live in :) If you want more information to become a local Landcare “member”:
Steels Creek:
Dixons Creek
Chum Creek: