Tasmania hunting dogs: species restrictions and licensing resources

Key facts

Species-specific prohibition

Dog assistance in taking deer and muttonbirds [source]

Read the species-specific dog restrictions

Tasmania’s Nature Conservation (Wildlife) Regulations 2021 contain explicit species-specific rules for dogs. Regulation 65 prohibits taking deer by means of, or with the assistance of, a dog; regulation 66 separately prohibits dog assistance in taking muttonbirds. These provisions are more precise than a general statement that hunting dogs can flush or retrieve game. The current consolidated regulations incorporate amendments through 2026, making them the useful reference for the actual provision. A description of a dog’s role in another state or a broad paragraph in an older hunting booklet should not be substituted for those species-specific restrictions.

Licensing and permission remain separate requirements

NRE Tasmania’s licence-eligibility resource identifies deer, wild duck, muttonbird, wallaby, brown quail and pheasant as licensed hunting categories. It explains firearms-licence requirements, private-land permission, waterfowl identification testing for duck applicants and the relationship between earlier take returns and a new licence. Non-shooting participants have their own application explanation in the property-protection context. Those administrative details help a handler identify which person and activity the paperwork covers. Landowner permission, a hunting licence and an authorisation under wildlife regulations are different documents; the species rules still describe the permitted role of a dog.

Training material has its own wildlife provisions

The regulations additionally address wildlife used for drag hunts, dog races and dog training. Regulation 93 restricts use of protected-category wildlife and its products, with a stated authorisation pathway for carcass use. This concerns training material as well as an outing in the field. Biosecurity Tasmania supplies a separate resource on access to livestock carcasses and untreated offal, including the prohibition on feeding untreated offal from specified livestock to dogs. Read together, these sources distinguish hunting method, lawful possession or use of wildlife material and the handling of carcasses around dogs, without treating a general licence as permission for every training exercise.

Common questions

Sources & further reading

References for this guide. Rules and services can change; check the responsible organisation for current details.

• Tasmania: current Nature Conservation (Wildlife) Regulations (opens in a new tab)
• NRE Tasmania: hunting licence eligibility (opens in a new tab)
• Biosecurity Tasmania: hydatid and offal requirements (opens in a new tab)

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