Thread: goat shooting land

Originally Posted by TLB

Not too sure about that. Some of their newly planted blocks in Northern Hawkes Bay they have literally taken thousands of goats out of each block to the point where you seldom see many at all. They do a pretty reasonable job of pest control overall.
As far as no shooting hinds go, that's the first I've heard.

At the end of the day you have to weigh it up don't you. A few tree's damaged by transient deer is a hard thing to deal with. You could spend thousands on pest control and still have the damage done. And to be fair I think as far as deer numbers go it probably isn't very high numbers in the scheme of things.
Anyone who has been into some of the blocks in the likes of parts of Gisborne would understand what high deer numbers are.

A large chunk of fmnz blocks are permitted out to hunt which is better than virtually all forestry companies in Hawkes Bay now. Also there are a lot of people in the database and not enough blocks to give out. Plus investors and staff also like to hunt.

I should have said I don't know anything about FMNZ policies over all, just the specifics of the block next door because I asked the manager about it. His reply was about investors doing the shooting, this might be a one off situation. He also said they intended to do a once annual possum control, which did not impress me. I try to get it done every three-four months.

Yes as you say the pest population is nowhere near as high here as it is in N HB, but what I know is I see a lot of trees looking like this over the boundary fence (then they die and stand there for a year or so brown).



They don't seem to be doing any control at all, as far as I know. What is acceptable loses for pine forests? I don't have a thermal yet, but have borrowed one a few times and seen deer in the pines every time. I'm probably the only guy on this forum who would prefer not to have deer in the backyard.

My place for comparison;

Different tree species, same problem.

Goats have not been a major issue here for several years, just the odd one. But they're coming back with some big mobs both N and S of me on the coast. The new pine block on my N boundary touches another pine block on the coast giving full undercover access to goats so this will no doubt become a problem for me again soon. The only good thing about it is the young guys on the big corporate farm to my S are very keen hunters so they will keep the population down.