A deer has been spotted by astonished residents on Sydney’s upper north shore, as the wild animal continues to encroach on the city’s suburbs in greater numbers.
The deer was photographed by a resident peering through a fence at a sports oval on Kissing Point Road in Turramurra last Monday evening.
The photo shows the deer’s antlers rising above the oval’s chain link fence.
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In a post on a Turramurra Facebook group, another resident said two highway patrol officers had visited his home on the same day, looking for the deer after it had been spotted near the Comenarra Parkway.
Feral deer numbers have exploded across Australia over the past few decades, with the increase described by the Invasive Species Council as the country’s worst emerging animal pest problem.
Speaking in March during this year’s deer breeding season, Centre for Invasive Species Solutions CEO Shauna Chadlowe warned that extreme weather events – such as droughts, floods and fires – were pushing deer into new areas.
“It’s astonishing – deer have now spread to every state and territory in Australia. In fact, nearly a quarter of New South Wales and Tasmania, and almost half of Victoria are now home to established populations,” she said.
“Their numbers have increased tenfold in recent decades,” she said.
According to the National Deer Action Plan, deer were introduced to Australia from Europe in the 19th century but the local population really took off in the 1990s.
Deer numbers in Australia have grown from 200,000 in 2002 to up to 2 million in 2022, according to estimates in the action plan.
The Centre for Invasive Species Solutions reports that damage caused by feral deer cost the Australian economy about $91.3 million in 2021, including $69.1 million in agricultural losses and $3.3 million in motor vehicle impacts, and $1.2 million in train collisions.
Anyone who spots a deer can report it to the federal monitoring service, DeerScan.
