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Should invasive feral boar, goat and venison be a bigger part of our cuisine?

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Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has described deer as the “next rabbit” among Australia’s wildlife species. (Image: Invasive Species Council Steve Morvell)

For Louise Daly, pie was a Trojan horse.

“The pie is one of the most accessible foods for most Australians. It’s an iconic part of the diet,” she said.

Ms Daly and her business partners want to normalise what goes into their pies – meat harvested through slaughter schemes.

“Most meat is not utilized, and we find that this is a huge waste of high-quality protein that we want people to be able to enjoy more of,” she said.

Eating pests

Should invasive wild boar, goat and venison become a bigger part of our diet?

Louise Daily hopes to expand interstate. (ABC Goulburn Murray: Alice Walker)

Wildpie was founded in Beechworth in northeast Victoria in August and sources its ingredients from venison and goat from local controlled programs, wild boar from South Australia, and wallabies caught from a slaughter program on Flinders Island.

Ms Daley said the goal of the business was to raise awareness of the importance of controlling invasive species (except wallabies) and to actively contribute to reducing their numbers.

“Our main mission is actually to make bushmeat more acceptable to people,” she said.

“We’re hoping that we can grow, that people will support what we do, and that we can help create an industry.”

Should invasive wild boar, goat and venison become a bigger part of our diet?

Louise Daily says consumers are becoming more concerned about where their food comes from. (ABC Goulburn Murray: Alice Walker)

This is a topic discussion.

On January 7, ABC premiered Eat The Invaders, a series centered around artist and “First Lady of MONA” Kirscha Kaechele’s 2019 cookbook and exhibition Eat the Problem.

Another cookbook, Ross O’Meara’s Wild Meat, hit bookstore shelves this year and is selling well in Mansfield, a popular hunting resort in Victoria, according to local bookstores.

The Invasive Species Council’s main concern isn’t meat from recreational hunting, but the culinary industry that’s built around wild animals.

“It does highlight the problem of invasive species .. but also gives society a degree of license to control them,” said conservation officer Tiana Pirtle.

“But the goals of commercial markets are to be self-perpetuating and to continue to generate revenue, and to some extent these (ecological and economic goals) can conflict with each other.”

In other words, Dr. Pirtle said, if your conservation goal is to eliminate or strictly control an invasive species, eventually its numbers will decline to the point where it is market-destroying.

Should invasive wild boar, goat and venison become a bigger part of our diet?

Tianna Pirtle says slaughtered animals left to rot in the field are not necessarily considered waste. (Image credit: Invasive Species Council)

“We need landscape-scale, targeted, coordinated approaches that focus specifically on removal, eradication and reduction of invasive species populations,” she said.

“We still don’t have a really convincing commercial market case for removing invasive species from the landscape, and sometimes it can actually do more harm than good.”

NZ’s deer wars

The tipping point between commercial and conservation interests has been studied in New Zealand, which Wildpie points to as an example of a country that has successfully built an industry around invasive species management.

But New Zealand Wildlife Council said the situation was complicated.

Should invasive wild boar, goat and venison become a bigger part of our diet?

Wildpie’s business partner and supplier runs a boning room in the same building. (ABC Goulburn Murray: Alice Walker)

A 2023 report by the hunting statutory body for the New Zealand Department of Conservation acknowledges that schemes to recover deer killed for the meat market “are not effective in maintaining very low deer densities, as population density affects their economic viability”.

General manager Tim Gale said meat harvesting strategies could be successful in reducing numbers of some species in certain areas, particularly in open areas where aerial shooting is more effective.

“If you want to eradicate the disease, the commercial approach may not be the best option,” he said.

“But it’s another very valuable tool in the toolbox.”

Should invasive wild boar, goat and venison become a bigger part of our diet?

Tim Gale wants to see more commercial harvesting of introduced species in New Zealand. (Image credit: Tim Gale)

He said introduced species such as deer, tahr, antelope and pigs were valuable in New Zealand for hunting, meat, social activities and tourism income.

But commercial activity appears to conflict with the interests of recreational hunters.

“In New Zealand we have created what are called recreational hunting areas .. where people feel these deer species are threatened,” Mr Gale said.

“That means helicopters can’t fly in there and shoot and recover the deer.”

In the mid-to-late 20th century, New Zealand’s private commercial hunters killed large numbers of deer to supply the venison market, but later, due to reduced demand and rising costs, more profitable deer farming became popular.

Mr Gale said commercial hunters killed 140,000 deer in New Zealand in 1971, the peak year for deer populations. 

Since 1983, he has set the annual figure at 20,000.

‘Pie in the sky’

James Russell, professor of conservation biology at the University of Auckland, said commercial meat harvesting was no longer a key pillar of New Zealand’s biodiversity policy.

Should invasive wild boar, goat and venison become a bigger part of our diet?

Professor James Russell says building a meat market around invasive species may seem appealing, but there are problems (Credit: James Russell)

“Anything can quickly destabilize that market .. so if you’re in the middle of a shift in market forces, the resilience of your pest control system is at risk,” he said.

“It doesn’t mean .. that we shouldn’t continue to use slaughter operations for biodiversity management and re-use the resulting meat, but it shouldn’t be the driving force behind it.

“Our national parks should not actually be treated as farms for exotic species.”

Should invasive wild boar, goat and venison become a bigger part of our diet?

Wild deer populations are concentrated in southeastern Australia. (Image credit: Faye Beswick, Invasive Species Council)

Like Dr. Pirtle, he said the devil was in the details and that commercial interests were not in favor of eliminating meat from their products.

“It’s problematic on every level because with an introduced species .. the goal should be total eradication,” he said.

The Invasive Species Council says deer have doubled their range in Australia since 2002 and are now found in every state and territory, trampling and overgrazing vegetation.

The federal government expects the number to reach between 1 million and 2 million, up from 50,000 in 1980.

Should invasive wild boar, goat and venison become a bigger part of our diet?

Louise Daily wants to challenge negative stereotypes about the taste, price and safety of wild game. (ABC Goulburn Murray: Alice Walker)

Ms Daley said her business would not have much of an impact on deer numbers, but she would be happy if it did.

“We’re not going to put ourselves out of business,” she said.

“It’s a bit of a castle in the air situation.”

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