Thread: For all the farmers complaining about deer, goats and other pests

Originally Posted by Ben Waimata

The deer issue needs to be regional, not per farm. Last week I found 13 flattened spots in one of my hay paddocks, then again the next morning. So not trusting my shooting abilty to take out 13 reds in a single shoot up I grabbed a local guy to give me a hand the following morning. We did the 1k walk to the site in the dark, all set up looking into the area at 5.30 dawn. But nothing there. And no sign they have been back since.

So the properties with very high numbers can be hunted easily but a lot of us farmers have transient populations and can spend many hours looking without seeing anything, then other times seeing heaps of deer (almost exclusively when the rifle is still in the safe). I've had lots of people (including forum memebrs) come look over this place but so far not a single one of them has shot a deer here. Blaming farmers as such is not really fair either. We can all tell stories of losing stock (or farm gear) to poachers, and once people know there are deer about I'm told this poaching problem just gets worse, not better.

I agree with this, people need to work together. One property we have shot over 500 goats, and there is still the odd mob that comes through problem is that neighbours dont want shooting, and one even tries to keep them as pets and we often see big mobs on the next door. Without everyone working together the numbers will never really reduce in a meaningful way.