Thread: Deer Population Growth

Originally Posted by Snoppernator

We might want to be careful making generalisations across the country based on what we see locally.

You can’t really call the widest part of the country with an almost ubiquitous ungulate problem from coast to coast a local situation…. That’s a significant regional problem on a broad scale. From the far western Taranaki right the Wanganui, Manawatu, Taihape, Ruapehu, Taumarunui, Taupo, over to the Kaimanawas and through to the Wairarapa & Hawkes Bay and up into the East Cape. Red deer are on the move and are being seen in areas they have either never been seen before or they’ve long been assumed to have been eradicated. On one of my permissions near Ureti in the NW Taranaki, third-generation farmers are seeing fallow for the first time where previously they’ve only had a problem with pigs and goats. On another permission near Waverley in the S Taranaki, where there is a significant fallow population, the landowner was horrified to see a mob of reds on his back paddocks last winter. Never seen them before and neither have any of the guys that hunt his property. Ditto sika, they are starting to turn up all over the Western Ruapehu now, and that’s a very recent thing.

People I know inland from Hicks Bay on the NE end of the Raukumaras talk about plagues of reds raiding their farms in numbers they’ve not experienced over three generations.

Similar sentiment from those on here that farm in Hawke’s Bay. Just look at @BRADS photos from a few days ago.

This isn’t a private block, local level problem, were taking out hinds on a recreational hunter level is going to make any difference. It’s a far bigger problem than that. But also I don’t think there’s any nationwide generalising happening here based on local observations at all. The comments so far have been quite specific geographically speaking.