Special report
Hunting and Fishing Minister James Meager will consider formally designating Fiordland National Park’s wapiti herd as a “herd of special interest”.
However Forest and Bird is appalled.
The organisation’s chief executive officer Nicola Toki accused the concept as letting “a North American deer species use the national park as a glorified veggie patch – eating away at the very natural heritage that these sanctuaries have been legally designed to protect.”
But Forest and Bird’s strong opposition to the wapiti being managed as game animal received a similar backlash.
Laurie Collins convenor of the Sporting Hunters Outdoor Trust said Forest ands Bird’s opposition “bordered on the ideologically idiotic.”
“The strident rhetoric shows Forest and Bird is out of touch with reality,” he said.
Laurie Collins has visited the Fiordland wilderness on numerous occasions since the 1970s with his last visit just a year ago.
He described Fiordland’s vegetation as particularly aggressive under the warm, very wet environment which has seen the highest recorded annual rainfall in Fiordland, specifically in Milford Sound, is around 9 metres (29.5 feet), making it one of the wettest places on Earth. Normally the rainfall is about seven metres.
Cockayne
“Even Forest and Bird’s founder, amateur botanist Leonard Cockayne, acknowledged New Zealand’s vegetation is aggressive in growth and regeneration,” he said. “Management of a special wapiti herd embraces management of numbers and quality.”
Hunting and Fishing Minister James Meager said a managed special wapiti herd represent an opportunity for economic growth in regional New Zealand.
“Better, healthier deer herds provide opportunities for domestic and international visitors to hunt the only free-range wapiti herd outside of North America,” said James Meager.
But Forest and Bird were adamant.
“Undermining the incredible landscapes and habitats of Fiordland National Park so that a few hunters can shoot a small number of deer each year, is catering to a handful of vested interests at the expense of all New Zealanders,” said Nicola Toki.
“We are equally clear that putting precious time and taxpayer money into a Herd of Special Interest is not a priority.”
Laurie Collins said Forest and Bird’s opposition ignored that New Zealand’s vegetation had evolved under intense browsing over 50 million years by large moa numbers and other vegetarian birds such as kokako, takahe, kakapo and wood pigeon (kereru).
Several Million Moa
“One eminent New Zealand ecologist Dr Graeme Caughley estimated the several moa subspecies totalled several million, meaning high browsing pressure,” he said.
Council of Outdoor Recreation Associations spokesman Tony Orman said Forest and Bird was simply basing its opposition on it’s long-held ideology of “anti-introduced phobia.”
There was ample scientific evidence that Forest and Bird did not acknowledge or selectively chose to ignore and he cited the 1949 New Zealand-American Fiordland Expedition which out researched the relationship of red deer/ wapiti and to the environment.
“The scientists pointed to a change from the natural vegetation (as after moa and before deer) towards a new vegetation still composed of native species but more stable in the face of animal browsing and grazing, was in progress,” said Tony Orman. “What they said in essence is that vegetation species palatable to the browsers become less but are replaced by non-palatable species. It would’ve happened with moa, now it’s happened with wapiti and deer.”
Deer Okay
The 1949 Fiordland scientific research concluded that although the composition of the forest is somewhat altered, “no changes of economic consequence (through the continued presence of wapiti and deer) can result. Large areas of forest will remain in their pristine condition through inaccessibility despite the continued presence of deer and the number of animals present cannot increase too any extent since the numerical strength of herds is vigorously controlled by the limited area of good browsing range available.”
Tony Orman said the late 1940s when the scientific expedition carried out their extensive research was significantly acknowledged as the peak population years of deer.
Research in the late 1950s by eminent biologist Thane Riney examined an “unhunted” red deer population in Fiordland and found animal numbers naturally low and had attained balance with the habitat’s carry capacity.
“Nature achieved ecological equilibrium on her own. There’s no reason for Forest and Bird’s hysteria over deer management and in this case of wapiti as a managed herd,” he said.
