Helicopter-based shooting (hereafter ‘aerial culling’) of vertebrate pest animals has been an effective management tool since the 1960s. It has been used to reduce densities of invasive ungulates, most notably in New Zealand where the technique was pioneered to manage introduced deer (red deer Cervus elaphus scoticus, wapiti C. e. nelsoni, white-tailed deer Odocoileus virginianus, sambar deer C. unicolor, sika deer C. nippon, rusa deer C. timorensis, and fallow deer Dama dama), goats (Capra hircus), and pigs (Sus scrofa) [1, 2, 3]. In Australia, aerial culling is widely used to control pigs, goats, and increasingly, introduced deer such as fallow, red, sambar, rusa, and chital (Axis axis) deer [4, 5]. Aerial culling for pigs forms part of routine management operations in the USA [6, 7] and is considered a humane control method for pigs [8, 9] and deer [5, 10]. The two primary determinants of good welfare being reduced duration and intensity of animal suffering [11].