Deer kills man, seriously injures woman in rural Victoria

A man is dead and a woman has been left with horrific injuries after they were attacked by a deer in the north of Victoria this morning.
Natalie Wolfe

A man is dead and a woman has been left with horrific injuries after they were attacked by a deer in the north of Victoria this morning.

It is believed the animal attacked the pair just before 8.30am in Moyhu, south of Wangaratta, in the state's north east.

The couple were attacked as they were walking on their rural property after the feral deer emerged from the bush and violently gored them both.

Victoria Police confirmed the deer had been killed by officers.

Despite the best efforts from paramedics, the man died at the scene from critical injuries.

The woman has suffered life-threatening upper-body and leg injuries and was treated by air ambulance.

She has since been flown to Alfred Hospital in Melbourne in a critical condition.

An Ambulance Victoria spokeswoman said the woman was in “quite a serious condition” when paramedics arrived.

According to a 2017 state government report there are as many as a million feral deer in Victoria, with some species increasingly found in urban areas.

Deer numbers swelled after Victoria’s Black Saturday bushfires in 2009, culminating in many regional councils writing to the state government last year and begging for a cull.

Licensed recreational hunters are allowed to shoot most deer species in Victoria due to their game classification.

Victoria’s National Park Assocation has also been calling for a deer cull for years, comparing them to a more dangerous cane toad.

In July 2018, the association warned “deer have largely taken over most of Victoria’s prime natural areas in recent years”.

“They are trashing rainforest areas, mucking up our alpine region, chewing away at rare species in the Grampians — the list goes on. They are also impacting farms and creating havoc on our roads,” the association added.

Association spokesman Philip Ingamells later told The Age the state government would have to kill at least 400,000 deer a year to get the problem under control.

“They’re poised to take over the nation,” he said.

More to come

https://www.news.com.au/national/victori...67ce1594086a30b