From Face Book, Game Animal Council
There’s been growing media and community attention on wild deer and their management lately.
Deer are a valued introduced species. Unfortunately, though, their place in New Zealand has remained contentious. Deer populations have surged between boom-and-bust cycles, and we are yet to land a sustainable approach where they are effectively managed for both values and impacts.
Good management is about designing a system that allows different parts of the sector to complement each other, rather than compete. It is not about choosing between deer, farmers, hunters or conservation, but finding the right balance in each place, and having leadership that understands the animals, the people, the land and the social and economic realities that shape them.
The GAC’s view is that the hunting sector – recreational and commercial – remains central to any future management approaches. A fundamental flaw in the current approach is that responsibility is set across a range of different agencies, and the sector remains outside of decision-making.
The GAC has heard from many across the sector recently who are concerned about some of the claims being made about their role, the history, and the future of wild deer management in New Zealand. As the organisation legislated to represent the views of the hunting sector, it is our responsibility to provide some clarity on the facts and make sure the people who are already doing the work are fairly represented.
Read more on the GAC website here: https://nzgameanimalcouncil.org.nz/opinion-moving-beyond…/
Fed Farmers are doing themselves a lot of harm with their excessive ranting over wild deer. It’s like the old days back in 1930s when high country farmers along with Forest and Bird waged war on deer via The Deer Menace Conference.
In these days of advanced (?) technology of highly accurate varied calibre rifles, scope sights, thermal gear, not forgetting helicopters, rtc, management of numbers has never been easier.
What about letting genuine sporting hunters access too?
Fed Farmers are in danger of being classed as an extremist group just like Forest and Bird.
Federated Farmers do not represent all farmers. From a farming friend who no longer belongs to FF, I understand a minority percentage of farmers belong to the organisation.
Instead of a hate campaign, how about FF adopting a management campaign?
Certain groups clearly want war over the state of the deer population and alleged environmental damage by deer. There are also the groups who see all hunting as barbaric (I bet they swat flies over their meals though). The old quote states that in any war the first casualty is always the truth. We have to keep asking these groups “where is your scientific evidence?
The farmer along with the media have turned this deer witch hunt in a bloody circus, the main stream media will find something else to sensationalise when they’ve finished distorting the deer story.
Maybe our Fore Fathers got it right ? releasing Deer into the N.Z bush , as a food Larder , more so today than ever, with the very high price of Sheep Meat, Beef Etc. Federated Farmers, belong to the “BEST” Trade Union in the Country, so until they can put cheaper Meat in the Supermarket for every day Kiwis & they should back right off. Re our Wild Deer ? > By the way some of our Red Deer in the South Island have quite a noble background ? Released at Westport they came from the Royal herd at Windsor ! then Wapiti , sent over from the U.S. by their President at the time & these Clowns along with Forest & Bird want to 1080 them ?
It is high time our government properly got their heads around this and several other important matters – and took a co-ordinated, integrated, whole-of-government approach. In a country full of wild, introduced species that need to be population-managed .. many on productive farmland, where poisons cannot be used on a widespread basis .. Recreational Hunting is a nationally vital necessity.
It has long been argued, Recreational Hunters are New Zealand’s greatest eco-warriors. And apart from helping protect our indigenous biodiversity, we also make a vital contribution to agricultural productivity. All at no cost to taxpayers, ratepayers, and landholders .. and worst of all (being very poor at owning our own narrative) .. often given little or no credit, for our contribution.
However, we are effectively hamstrung from realising the full potential of our contribution to wild, introduced species population management (not just deer).
There are some major barriers to our success (see below).
Indicatively,:
* We’ve got in excess of 5 billion dollars Invested in our recreational assets (the way the government valued them during the firearms so-called buyback .. in reality a thinly-veiled, only-partly-compensated confiscation .. this is likely to be exceeded by our firearms alone .. which represents only a minor fraction of our investment).
* We spend into the hundreds of millions of dollars per annum. Again, NZ’s 167,000-odd Hunters (MSC “A Hunter’s Tale) only need to spend $600 each, to make our total reach $100M. Many Recreational Hunters are inactive or relatively inactive .. but others spend into the tens of thousands per annum, myself included. Think vehicles, fuel, ammunition, other travel costs incl helicoptors, charter vessels, and air travel, accommodation, clothing, hunting equipment and technology, gamebird licences and other fees etc. Consider also the combined sales of all the industry suppliers including clothing brands, and retail chains like Hunting & Fishing, Gun City etc).
* We spend millions of hours involved in our recreational activity. Again, 167,000-odd Hunters only need to spend an average of 6 hours each per year, to crack a million. Some put in hundreds of hours. Think weekend hunting trips, and week-long trips into places like Fiordland, Stewart Island, etc
* We account for into the millions of critters per annum. Again, that’s only 6 critters each. Some of us account for hundreds, even thousands. My wider family are a very good example .. we’re well into the thousands. This includes the so-called big- and medium-sized game species (deer, tahr, pigs, and chamois), but also includes small game, gamebirds, and so-called pest species. So that covers goats, wallabies, rabbits, hares, possums, ducks, geese, swans, feral cats, mustelids, rodents, etc).
* Recreational hunting makes an immeasurable contribution to both the physical and mental health of hundreds of thousands of people (not just those with the Firearms Licence). It’s our motivation to keep fit, eat well, and watch our weight. It satiates a primeval instinct, in ways that other parts of modern lifestyles do not. Our wives / partners and families will tell you .. we’re much better people to be around, when we’ve been out hunting. Being out in the backcountry and the bush is good for the soul. The benefits are internationally, widely recognised. The Japanese call a similar experience shinrin-yoku (forest bathing).
The biggest threats to our success include:
* Access. We simply cannot manage the populations of pockets of animals we cannot access. Government agencies have systematically eroded our public access to huge swathes of public land – with locked gates, and failing to provide for it during processes like the South Island High Country’s Tenure Reviews. But effective wild, introduced species population management also requires managed access to the privately-owned land where many of these animals reside. Many Landholders see the win / win .. the economic and environmental benefits to them and their stewardship of the land .. of allowing such access, and are appropriately accommodating .. but others are not. The worst of these .. are those who deny modern access through their land, to the public land beyond. Access that was almost always, traditionally permitted.
And the very, very worst .. are the foreign owners who con their way through the Overseas Investment Office .. and then, by virtue of their different values around land stewardship .. stop such traditional, historical access.
Kiwis locked out of their own land, by foreigners!
* The Right Tools for the Job. Again, the government and its agencies have conspired to take away our best tools, eg self-loading rifles (so-called semi-autos). This particularly affects numbers taken in species like goats, and wallabies .. and other species where high numbers demand culling .. often reducing the tallies able to be taken by as much as 20-50%, in some cases. There are some reasons for this that are little-known, and rarely considered. Again, I can personally attest to this.
* Firearms Licensing Reforms – what’s going on in this space is sheer stupidity. New Zealand is currently losing Firearms Licence Holders at the rate of 500 per month .. with the total number having dropped from 248,000, to something more like 220,000. The Firearms Safety Authority regards this as a win .. but it’s a national disaster in the making. I recently discussed this with a Māori kaumātua .. who had himself given up his Firearms Licence, and gotten rid of his firearms. “The government and the Police have just made it too hard, and I wasn’t really using them”, he told me.
When I explored with him what would have otherwise happened to his firearms, his mistake dawned upon him. They would have eventually gone to his tamariki, and his mokopuna, encouraging them to carry on ancient traditions. This inter-generational handover is a very important part of our national succession plan, for wild, introduced species population management .. and our Police have been systematically destroying it, right under our very noses!
None of this is rocket science!
Sometimes I wonder, under the so-called leadership of our successive governments, and our members of parliament .. if we haven’t got rocks in our heads. We behave as if topics like this exist in silos, rather than as part of a broader, all-encompassing approach. Surely, those in our government and its agencies need to put aside their ideologies, and their preconceived ideas .. and do what’s collectively best for our country!
I saw an election Ad for the ACT Party recently where Nicole McKee shoots a red deer on the back of someone’s farm in the Wairarapa. All very nice, extolling the virtues of hunting for all NZers especially wahine toa heading out to get wild meat for the table.
How many farmers allow hunting access to local hunters, especially the great unwashed from low-decile state housing areas such as Naenae and Mangere? I daresay no farmer would allow hunting access to such people when they can have paying customers, close friends and the occasional cabinet minister hunting their property instead. And when deer numbers get out of hand – they just whine about how the Government isn’t doing it’s job and maybe spread some more 1080 poison etc – all at the taxpayers expense.
Sorry Nicole – shooting an easy deer on the back of someone’s farm, with a locked gate at the entrance, doesn’t wash with real hunters. How about having a go hunting on Public Conservation Lands? If you can find some which hasn’t been 1080 poisoned recently.
Thanks for your comment, Postman Pat .. I don’t think we should judge what anybody has to be or do .. to be a “real hunter”. Each to their own. Whatever spins your wheels. As long as what you are doing is legal .. and fits within reasonable standards of being ethical .. then you can call yourself a hunter, in my book. Like everything else in our lives, some people are constrained by their personal resources .. including money, and time .. others by their experience .. and so each has their own definition of what hunting means to them. For some, it’s trophy hunting .. for others it’s meat hunting .. and for still others, it is culling. Each can be equally valid, in its own context, and circumstances.