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Australians continue to take an interest in deer hunting, and nowhere is that connection stronger than in the Mansfield High Country.
Google Trends data for the search term “deer hunting” shows consistent interest across Australia during the past five years, with some of the strongest spikes occurring during the most recent year.
Search interest reached its highest point of the five-year this past January2026, hitting 100 on the Google Trends index.
Google Trends measures relative search interest rather than the number of individual searches, with 100 representing the point at which the term was most popular during the period being examined.
The Game Management Authority’s latest deer harvest report found the area around Mansfield was Victoria’s most popular location for recreational deer hunting in 2025.
It was also the area where the highest number of deer were harvested, ahead of other major hunting areas around Bairnsdale, Corryong, Wodonga and Alexandra.
And Mansfield’s place at the top of the list is nothing new.
It was also Victoria’s most popular hunting area in 2024, when it again recorded the state’s highest deer harvest.
The figures reinforce the High Country’s long-standing reputation as one of Victoria’s major deer hunting destinations.
Parks Victoria describes sections of the Alpine National Park around Mansfield and Whitfield as “world class for Sambar Deer stalking”, with deer hunting permitted under specific conditions in designated sections of the park.
Statewide, an estimated 158,500 deer were harvested by recreational hunters in 2025, 66 per cent above the long-term average of 95,400 recorded since 2009.
Sambar Deer accounted for the vast majority, with an estimated 118,400 harvested, followed by about 38,000 Fallow Deer.
Victoria had 51,347 licensed recreational deer hunters during the year, with 55 per cent actively hunting.
Those who took part spent an average of 11 days hunting and harvested an estimated 5.6 deer each.
The figures followed an even larger harvest in 2024, when an estimated 167,600 deer were taken across Victoria – 83 per cent above the long-term average calculated at the time.
Sambar again dominated, accounting for about 128,000 of the animals harvested.
The combination of Google search interest and Victoria’s annual harvest figures shows deer hunting remains far from a niche activity in Mansfield.
This content is part of a paid partnership with Google to promote Google Trends. It uses Google Trends data to explore Australian search interest in deer hunting. Google Trends data is aggregated and anonymous. Search interest is measured on a relative scale and does not represent total search volume.