Thread: Calling Micky Duck and Tahr and Gimp and Tikka

I couldn’t be bothered reading the whole story, but the first few paragraphs I read, had nothing I would disagree with.
As hunters we need to wake up and smell the bacon.

A few years back a mate of mine who is a commercial hunter contracting to Doc and Auckland council did a lot of culling work on some blocks North of Auckland, private, council and Doc.
I did a bit with him to help him out.

I’ve already posted on here or it may have been FishnHunt about some of the experiences, and got a fair bit criticism for it, often by PM.
Since I’m a sucker for punishment I’ll reiterate some of what I said previously.


We had a warrant under some MPI act, which allowed us onto private property; irrespective of the land owner giving permission.
In saying that, we did not enter if they got aggressive, or were vehemently opposed. (and there were plenty like that)
When we worked the private land we did not show up with rifles or camo gear. Initially it was purely reconnaissance or surveillance work to see if there were deer present.

The simple fact is there are ton a fallow deer living in the smallest pockets of scrub North - North west of Auckland. The populations are expanding at phenomenal rates.
At the moment the Waitakere ranges are free of deer, but every year they are moving closer, there are no barriers preventing them from reaching the ranges.

The main issue is land owners. Full Stop.
They don't want them shot, they think there aren’t many, they’re cute, it’s Bambi, or they want them for themselves (hunting) or they have something to hide.
Very few said, yes there are deer everywhere, please come and shoot them, they’re eating my horses grass.
Some just don’t believe there are any. I heard a buck croaking from the driveway of one property, while the owner was telling me there are no deer because he’d never seen one.
It was coming from a tiny patch of swampy scrub not 100m from his house, 400 odd meters from the Woodhill pine forest. I later counted 12 between his patch of scrub and Woodhill forest.

We’ve had some robust discussions with various members of the Deerstalkers, the Woodhill Fallow Foundation, Iwi, none of them want the population reduced.
The population is right now in plague proportions in places, I’ve seen so many deer in one place you cant possibly count them. Hundreds!
There are waterways up there which have no runoff from grazed land and they have such high levels of urea or uric acid that the native fish are struggling to survive. It’s coming from wild deer!

There was another private pest controller who shot a private pine block not far from us who shot just under 1000 deer in a one week period.

I don’t know the answer to the private land holders, the life-stylers who unwittingly have a dozen deer on their 10 acres. But in my view Woodhill forest needs to have the shit shot out of it. It’s a nursery constantly spewing deer into the surrounds, like Te Miro on steroids.
The WFMC should allow a couple of years of hunting with no restrictions on deer; or at least Does shot to bring the population down. They need to put professional hunters with Thermal gear into the areas not hunted under permit/ballot which is probably 9/10s of the forest, as there many more times the deer in there.
But they wont because Doc & Council don't have the money, and wont take on Iwi who own the Nursery.