Thread: Central otago venison recovery

As a side note I was floundering around the upper reaches of the land owned by this operator last weekend and saw a couple of dozen of Reds feeding happily just on the outside of their boundary fence. At midday it was hot... 33 degrees... I was surprised the deer weren't under the nearest bit of scrub trying to stay cool. It was nice to see so many.

I bet they'd be more than happy if you went in there with your own machine and cleaned 30 or 40 up for them.

Im not a fan of anyone shooting deer ANYWHERE except ME but I cant be everywhere at once , quick tidy up from the choppers not so bad cream the hinds from the tops a couple of times job done move on , I got my nickers in a little twist last year when a chopper went through my local and tidied up 130 odd but a month latter I was in there and was surprised to see as many as I did , Id sleep better knowing they where leaving the stags alone .

Originally Posted by Carlsen Highway

You obviously didn't do any hunting in the 80's.

The WARO people I know (not many) are mostly doing rabbits, geese and pigs from choppers rather than deer the last couple of years, but this year is different.

I was but a sparkle in my father's eye in the early 80s, whilst he was shooting from a chopper.. and ground hunting in the weekends

Originally Posted by yogi

The problem is this waro operation is targeting one of the most popular and important recreational hunting area in otago.

They are targeting this area because it's easy and a profitable operation.
Basically no regard for the public

The bottom line is this land belongs to the public and it's not acceptable that this waro activity has taken place in this area.

Theses helicopter companies could go and carry venison recovery on private country as much as they like. Private country still makes up the bulk of land ownership.

There is a huge amount of feed in this area with very limited conservation value in terms of vulnerable vegetation.
The deer numbers are not going to become a problem due to recreational hunting in this area.

I don't understand why guys on here are supportive of a very wealthy family owned company going out if their way to screw up our hunting.

Um... No they can't "just go and target private land as much as they want"
Go somewhere else if you can't find a deer in an area the machines have been through, if they can pick up 70+ deer in a day shooting with one chopper then it's pretty obvious that recreational hunting isn't really putting a dent in numbers at all, sometimes they are going to go through an area that you (and others) deem important, tough bikkies.
If the machines don't pull out a certain number of animals a year then DOC goes in there and sorts them out their way, and believe me you would then have something to really moan about. Sometimes in life things happen that may not suit your agenda.

No one is supportive, just looking at it objectively.
If any operator remains within the bounds of their concession then there is essentially no problem.
Lobby DOC If you want to see changes of commercial access to public land.
DOC are the ones getting something for nothing here, they're quids in.

Originally Posted by yogi

The problem is this waro operation is targeting one of the most popular and important recreational hunting area in otago.

They are targeting this area because it's easy and a profitable operation.
Basically no regard for the public

The bottom line is this land belongs to the public and it's not acceptable that this waro activity has taken place in this area.

Theses helicopter companies could go and carry venison recovery on private country as much as they like. Private country still makes up the bulk of land ownership.

There is a huge amount of feed in this area with very limited conservation value in terms of vulnerable vegetation.
The deer numbers are not going to become a problem due to recreational hunting in this area.

I don't understand why guys on here are supportive of a very wealthy family owned company going out if their way to screw up our hunting.

Needed to be done, if they're shooting that many deer in a morning operation, there are too many deer. The alternative, a 1080 drop targeting deer. Choppers hunt ALL the public land country I hunt and there are still plenty of deer there for everyone. There have been several thousand taken off private and public land in my local over the past 12 months, and about time. Still saw 25-30 glassing from one spot on Saturday evening, in this same country. They've been chasing deer with choppers for 60 odd years, and there has been no better time for getting into hunting and seeing animals than these days.

JoshC that sorta proves that the choppers only cream the areas and leave good huntable numbers for those willing to put some effort in. Shame they target the stags for the body weight but then there seems to be a lot of good animals taken by ground hunters each year as well.

There is no choice between WARO or 1080 to control deer. That's a false dichotomy. 1080 is not used to control deer. WARO is private individuals profiting off a publicly owned resource, with the consent of DOC. DOC could impose and enforce conditions to make WARO more amenable to recreational hunters, but there's no interest in it. It is not done by the operators out of a good-hearted interest in conservation, it is purely for money. They don't care what you or DOC thinks about how many or what deer they shoot.

A system of more managed WARO to achieve positive outcomes for each group (recreational hunters, WARO operators and conservation) could be implemented but there's no interest in it from the parties that hold the balance of power (not recreational hunters)

The Gimp is one of the few who sees clearly.

Originally Posted by Ryan_Songhurst

I was but a sparkle in my father's eye in the early 80s, whilst he was shooting from a chopper.. and ground hunting in the weekends

Exactly.
I didn't ask what your father did, but knowing that explains your attitude to recreational hunters.

Unfortunately for us the venison markets look to remain very firm for at least another year or so which will continue to push the chopper boys to get out there



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yes thats a shame. We can only hope the cost of aviation fuel goes up.

Originally Posted by Moutere

No one is supportive, just looking at it objectively.
If any operator remains within the bounds of their concession then there is essentially no problem.
Lobby DOC If you want to see changes of commercial access to public land.
DOC are the ones getting something for nothing here, they're quids in.

I'm all for looking at these things objectively.......and it may well be that DoC are not in fact 'quids-in', and the only party getting something for nothing here are in fact the WARO operators. Seems to me this example potentially exemplifies a lot of what is wrong with the current WARO regime.

I don't know the area, but do note that a post above observed that there were no special conservation values at risk.....if correct, where is the downside in having a high deer population for trampers to look at and hunters to shoot? The notion that a high population anywhere is bad simply can't be supported from a conservation perspective....surely its all about the values at risk, and the underlying carrying capacity?

And wouldn't it be better for conservation to force the WARO guys (and then maybe find out their economic tipping point) to go somewhere 'harder', more remote and with some real conservation values at stake? We keep hearing these days how the WARO guys work to orders ? Show me the conservation gains by filling your order from the closest animals!

Seems to me this is a classic case of the WARO getting the easy ones 'cos they can'?

At the risk of being labelled a middle-aged opinionated curmudgeon, its gotta be said that some of you (younger?) guys dunno you're alive.......

Objectivity has nothing to do with conservation values.
Posts #25 and #26 sum the situation up perfectly.
WARO operators aren't getting anything handed to them for nothing. Sure, both the operators and DOC mutually benefit from culling animals, but the operator wears 100% of the risk and costs in doing so. A parallel could be drawn with the fishing industry where private companies profit from harvesting a publicly owned resource.

Your second to last line about them getting the easy ones because they can, is exactly my point.

You've completely lost me on the last line though.

Originally Posted by Maxx

I'm all for looking at these things objectively.......and it may well be that DoC are not in fact 'quids-in', and the only party getting something for nothing here are in fact the WARO operators. Seems to me this example potentially exemplifies a lot of what is wrong with the current WARO regime.

I don't know the area, but do note that a post above observed that there were no special conservation values at risk.....if correct, where is the downside in having a high deer population for trampers to look at and hunters to shoot? The notion that a high population anywhere is bad simply can't be supported from a conservation perspective....surely its all about the values at risk, and the underlying carrying capacity?

And wouldn't it be better for conservation to force the WARO guys (and then maybe find out their economic tipping point) to go somewhere 'harder', more remote and with some real conservation values at stake? We keep hearing these days how the WARO guys work to orders ? Show me the conservation gains by filling your order from the closest animals!

Seems to me this is a classic case of the WARO getting the easy ones 'cos they can'?

At the risk of being labelled a middle-aged opinionated curmudgeon, its gotta be said that some of you (younger?) guys dunno you're alive.......