A galloping deer that weaved its way unscathed through traffic with cars travelling at 80km/h has raised fears about the feral animal’s risk to road users.

Hitting the brakes hard and slowing down to about half of his travelling speed on a Canberra highway, Chris Perkovic yelled out “what the f**k?” at the sight of a deer criss-crossing the busy stretch of road.

“It was just a complete shock to see it come running by ... this big brown thing with antlers,” he said.

“I was confused because I’ve been here for nearly 40 years and had never seen anything like this in my life.”

Dash cam footage captured a deer running across a busy Canberra highway.

The 37-year-old computer business owner caught the deer on his car’s dash cam footage on Tuesday and posted it on Facebook, garnering thousands of reactions and hundreds of comments.

Deer are one of the most commonly hit animals across the country costing road users about $3.3 million a year.

Australia is home to more than 1.5 million feral deer, the population exploding from about 80,000 in 1980.

Their adverse environmental footprint costs communities and primary producers some $91 million a year.

They are present across a quarter of NSW and Tasmania, half of Victoria and half of South Australia’s farm lands.

The worrying statistics are contained in the federal government’s plan to manage the threat, launched in 2023.

Its modelling suggested most of the country could be inhabited by at least one of Australia’s six feral deer species within decades without concerted culling action.

Increasingly, they’re also a safety threat to humans as they venture onto roads.

The Invasive Species Council blamed successive NSW governments for dragging their feet on controlling the pest, warning the threat could lead to fatal road accidents.

“This is the consequence of two decades of inaction and mismanagement by the NSW government, driven by the power of the shooting lobby,” the council’s CEO Jack Gough said.

“Feral deer are trashing, trampling and polluting our forests and rivers, and are an increasing threat to motorists and agriculture.

“Efforts by governments and councils needed to be scaled up to protect capital cities from deer becoming a ‘forever problem’,” he said.

There were more than 105 motor vehicle accidents involving deer between 2005 and 2017 in the Illawarra region of NSW alone, the council estimated.

It said 90 of those were classified as serious, resulting in 28 injuries and one death.

The NSW government said it had invested more than $13 million in an expanded feral pest management program.

A contentious plan is in motion to change the state’s hunting laws, potentially opening a pathway for hunters to claim bounties for killing feral pests.

A parliamentary inquiry is probing the plan and is due to prepare a report in October on the changes.

The proposal — from the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party — has received some initial indications of support from the government.

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Saturday, 8th July 2023

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