Thread: Deer in Southern areas?

Back in November my son and I hunted a favourite spot on the West Coast. On the first day we saw about 80 deer - mostly in 3 large groups of yearlings as they had recently been chased off by their mums. So for every one of those yearlings, nearby there was a more than likely pregnant hind = around 240 deer, and this was in a very small area in one valley, probably no more than a square kilometre.

We never bothered venturing further up the valley to see how many were there.

We shot 9 over 4 days but could have shot more. Obviously couldn’t carry 9 deer so were selective in what we took. Wasteful? Sure was, but not as wasteful as DOC hitting the valley with 1080, and the number we shot will not even go close to slowing the population growth, let alone reducing it.

It is a simple equation. Either hunters need to shoot more animals to help control the population, or the control will be taken out of our hands.

Originally Posted by Sauer

Wasteful? Sure was, but not as wasteful as DOC hitting the valley with 1080

I absolutely agree with your general sentiments (although I don't see that kind of numbers on the West Coast! That is a concerningly high density of deer.) but I'd like to note that 1080 is not used to target deer anymore (since back in the forest service days, ish). There are no DOC 1080 drops with deer as a target species; there may be a lack of concern at some deer bykill in 1080 operations happening for other reasons (possum/predator control) but 1080 is absolutely not dropped for the purpose of killing deer. People may have the opinion that it is, but that is factually incorrect and it does hunters a disservice to repeat factually incorrect opinions, it undermines our credibility.

DOC currently does very little deer control anywhere, and this has been the case for a long time, where it does occur the chosen method is generally aerial S&D - e.g. Kaweka Mountain Beech, Raukumara, Fiordland Takehe area etc.