Bob Brown Foundation is calling on the state and federal governments to expand the successful aerial feral deer culling program to protect Tasmania’s unique Miena Cider Gum.

“Autopsies on feral fallow deer culled west of the Great Lake this year show rare and endangered Miena Cider Gum leaves in their stomachs. Feral deer eating the cider gum’s seedlings will drive it to extinction,” Bob Brown said.

“The aerial feral deer cull in the last two years has removed more than 1,000 deer from the Walls of Jerusalem area in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area (TWWHA). But most of the threatened cider gum habitat is around the Great Lake to the east. The cull should be expanded to remove feral deer from all of the TWWHA and any adjacent Miena Cider Gum habitat.”

The unique cider gums prefer frost-and-snow locations and produce a maple syrup-like sap which is much prized in Aboriginal culture but the trees have been killed by human-induced climate change, sheep, rabbits, fires and now deer.

“The program over the last two years shows that aerial culling is far more successful than on-ground shooting. It also shows the feral deer invasion extending to near Lake St Clair. This ecological disaster needs stopping in its tracks. Other species of native trees, birds and animals will be hurt by the feral deer invasion. At this eleventh hour of the deer invasion, it is vital to expand the cull to get them off the Central Plateau and back into the midlands where they were introduced nearly 200 years ago. The fallow deer should also have their partly protected status removed,” Bob Brown said.