Hawea/McKerrow conservation area Update.
We flew out of Big Hopwood on Wednesday for two reasons, first, rain was pending, and secondly and most importantly, No Deer! Lovely area, feed for nam but none of it eaten. We spent a lot of time glassing and going up the side creeks and going towards the heads of the valley, a couple of the guy's went down stream from the hut but it was the same there as well. We did find where a couple of hinds and fawns had crossed over but that was it. I did do a loop around a bush patch opposite the hut, and that's where I found the most sign, but it was three to four weeks old, and looking at it, only Hinds or younger animals. Possibly, if I carried on down the valley at that height, I may have found some deer but there was no roaring at all due to the very low numbers. There were Chamois higher up, and for that matter there was a young buck not far from the hut, but we were there to look for Red Stags not Chamois.
Looking though the hut book, there had been no deer shot above the hut for about 10 years, so there's been sparse pickings for some time.
When we got back to the Heli pad and talking to the pilot about the low numbers, he said that the WARO guys had gone though the area the first week of the ballot! and fairly annoyed some of the earlier hunters. That would explain why the sign was the age it was. They had hunted all the blocks right up to Forbes, the only block that still had a few animals in it was, High Burn, possibly because there was still cattle grazed there and the feed quality would have been better, and also they may not have been allowed to hunt it.
So should these blocks still be in the roar ballot, probably not, as all that is happening is it is wasting peoples time and money. The pilot from Back Country Helicopters said they're between a rock and a hard place as they don't do any WARO and ferrying in hunters is a big part of there business. There is no come back on the guys bombing the blocks up as they are entitled to do it when it suits them, so maybe DOC need to have a good hard think about things.
Grey Nomad, sorry I missed your call before we went in, it would have been good to get your idea on things.
