Thread: Herd management and Playing our part

A private conversation thread prompted me to put this forward and to help keep it at the forefront of our hunting and gathering lifestyles.

The short discussion involved shooting a stag that was carrying a large number of hinds. The first response was “I hope you shot some hinds”. The answer “Yes, shot three and gave them to the farmer”
This follows on from a deep and meaningful late night hut conversation, over a few straight vodkas, with a older Canadian gentleman I had taken on a hunting trip into the Doon in the late eighties.
He was lamenting the downturn in trophy head quality despite good animal numbers. I put it to him that maybe they need to start culling hinds and saving some of the better bucks for the future.
Having come out of the deer recovery industry in a small way, hinds were considered sacrosanct and deer numbers were low but I had seen the ravages of high deer numbers and with an established population and no management, numbers would escalate with poor quality outcomes both in trophy potential and having a reasonable population size to sustain our need to keep the freezer full. This was where my thinking was heading to back then.

It’s the latter that’s the current issue. I’m as much at fault in this as many others and it stems from our desire to utilise what we shoot and not be wasteful. I abhor killing for the sake of killing and hate waste even more but put that aside when it comes to reducing pest populations such as magpies, rabbits, goats etc. We need to carry that over to deer as well.

I’m very fortunate to have secured a top class trophy Red back in the nineties when it was very difficult to do so and one that I will probably never beat given it’s unique character and size so not a big motivator for me these days. From now, I will make a point of only taking red hinds for meat and shooting any I see. It won’t be big numbers but a few by all of us will make a difference for the future.

Cheers all and have at it with your thoughts.

this is really being pushed as of late...I guess tharmageddon has been a bit of a wake up call for us all...control numbers or it will be taken from our hands.
looking back over my kills from last 20 years,it is hind heavy,Im a bush hobbit at heart and it just works out that way. about to head out for roar hunt,if a hind is in front of me it will be interesting what I end up doing.my wife gives me shit about "looking at pretty antlers" due to leaving velvet stags to grow bigger and not shooting them for her to eat......
Im at stage of life where shooting large fawn is better than large stag,I can carry all meat out and it tastes great.
there is still protectionism going on from private land alongside DOC controlled blocks,heck I even got accused of poaching 1km plus outside of block across river and up through gorsey hillside...WHF would a fella bother doing that for??? I had spent pleasant day mousing around in thick bush with dog...its our happy place,a deer is a bonus.
talking to local chap last week it seems a certain landholder has gone all voodoo on anyone hunting alongside his block,the police seem to be on speedial for him,and they respond too....pity the copper I DEALT WITH didnt take 2 seconds to actually consider logistics of getting from where person was sighted to where we stood having discussion in the time frame involved.....
an encounter like that tends to make me reluctant to go back to area to hunt....typeing that explains my procrastinating now,I have all next week off yet struggling for motivation to get ready and head out door.

Thanks for posting this @Sidetrack. It's helpful to read. I'm soon to get back into hunting after 15 years away (and then almost 2 yrs getting licensed again). I have no real desire to hang a set of antlers on my wall. If a good head popped up, there's little doubt I'd have a crack, but hunting for food and just getting out into the bush are the main drivers for me. I'm the same with killing for the sake of it - previously limited to small furry fuckers as part of pest control.

On the topic of managing numbers, I get that rec. hunters have to do their part to get populations under control, or the whirly birds come in spitting lead. However, one question I have is how do we record the impact we're having? We hunt the same land as choppers, so there is no way of saying to the powers that be that we as a group are having an impact unless we record the numbers we are taking out of areas. Would it be feasible to take a similar approach to the glory days, and hand in tails to the local DOC office as proof of numbers? Otherwise I feel we might be pissing into the wind a little if we want to be considered as part of the solution, and remain relevant. Dunno. Data is power.

@MickyDuck, sounds like a recorded gps track might be helpful to show to your local orrificer where exactly you have been. Bush might make it a little less accurate, but would be within hundreds rather than thousands of metres. NZMaps app records your track. Costs $12 a year to have that feature, and is a but more battery hungry, but would certainly be rather farking satisfying showing old mate that he's full of shite. To be fair to him though, there is precedent of hobbits venturing far beyond their preferred habitat...

I watched an NZ hunting vid a few days where they had to "cull a few stinkies" to do their part in game management. The goats were in a few mobs of half a dozen or so, as were the fallow deer. But of course; the deer were sacrosanct.... Surely they should have culled a few deer and just left them there like they did the goats?

Genetics makes the biggest difference to antlers. Stags are no better fed on farms today than what they were twenty years ago and yet SCI scores have gone from 500 inches to 900 now. There are very few really good wild trophy heads and these should be left alone and not shot. Shooting them out lowers the genetic potential of the herd because those genetics are not replaced by better feeding of the remaining deer, they are gone. Crap heads breed crap heads and no amount of feed will make that up. Antler has a heritability factor of 40% which is very high and means that only three crosses of good blood are needed to change a herd.
Take a look at the first head in the following link :https://www.pointssouth.co.nz/blogs/...s-up-with-waro
This is the best Rakia blood head I have ever seen and it is a travesty that the animal was removed from the herd. Perfect lower tynes framed by massive treys and clean straight beams into the tops. This is a one in five thousand stags. If we see a head like this I think we should leave it. Photograph it and put a couple of shots in the dirt beside him and make him more careful.

Originally Posted by yeah_na_missed

Thanks for posting this @Sidetrack. It's helpful to read. I'm soon to get back into hunting after 15 years away (and then almost 2 yrs getting licensed again). I have no real desire to hang a set of antlers on my wall. If a good head popped up, there's little doubt I'd have a crack, but hunting for food and just getting out into the bush are the main drivers for me. I'm the same with killing for the sake of it - previously limited to small furry fuckers as part of pest control.

On the topic of managing numbers, I get that rec. hunters have to do their part to get populations under control, or the whirly birds come in spitting lead. However, one question I have is how do we record the impact we're having? We hunt the same land as choppers, so there is no way of saying to the powers that be that we as a group are having an impact unless we record the numbers we are taking out of areas. Would it be feasible to take a similar approach to the glory days, and hand in tails to the local DOC office as proof of numbers? Otherwise I feel we might be pissing into the wind a little if we want to be considered as part of the solution, and remain relevant. Dunno. Data is power.

@MickyDuck, sounds like a recorded gps track might be helpful to show to your local orrificer where exactly you have been. Bush might make it a little less accurate, but would be within hundreds rather than thousands of metres. NZMaps app records your track. Costs $12 a year to have that feature, and is a but more battery hungry, but would certainly be rather farking satisfying showing old mate that he's full of shite. To be fair to him though, there is precedent of hobbits venturing far beyond their preferred habitat...

I purchased a updated GPS soon afterwards for just that very reason.....

Originally Posted by Moa Hunter

Genetics makes the biggest difference to antlers. Stags are no better fed on farms today than what they were twenty years ago and yet SCI scores have gone from 500 inches to 900 now. There are very few really good wild trophy heads and these should be left alone and not shot. Shooting them out lowers the genetic potential of the herd because those genetics are not replaced by better feeding of the remaining deer, they are gone. Crap heads breed crap heads and no amount of feed will make that up. Antler has a heritability factor of 40% which is very high and means that only three crosses of good blood are needed to change a herd.
Take a look at the first head in the following link :https://www.pointssouth.co.nz/blogs/...s-up-with-waro
This is the best Rakia blood head I have ever seen and it is a travesty that the animal was removed from the herd. Perfect lower tynes framed by massive treys and clean straight beams into the tops. This is a one in five thousand stags. If we see a head like this I think we should leave it. Photograph it and put a couple of shots in the dirt beside him and make him more careful.

to some extent I agree...and to some,not so much....its borderline criminal for that to be shot via chopper for venison market and the head ground up for horn candy. if any foot hunter saw that stag,it would be shot and carried out.trophy of a lifetime.... now hunting stags post roar gives then chance to root and pass on genes,shooting them in velvet and stripping antlers does not...to me it is just about as senseless as stag hanging on strop under chopper or rotting in creek from poison.
but we all want to hunt roaring stags,for the thril of the chase ...at some point in our hunting it becomes the be all and end all,some stick with it,others dont. IM rather ho hum about it now.Ive shot some good stags but wont pass up another if find one. I will carry what meat I can. I wont kill myself doing so,thats silly,but if I brought out no meat,my Mrs would kick me out to sleep on street.
in some ways shooting hinds is even more playing gamble as cant see how good of genetics they carry... but yip they taste better.
when private blocks next door are locked up,there will always be deer migrating/moving back n forwards in and out of blocks,the riverbed areas are holding quite a few too,escapees and there multigenerational off spring.

The attitude of leave the hinds is quite strongly entrenched with many though.
Personally I shoot hinds in preference to stags better eating and the numbers definitly do need to be controlled.

Originally Posted by Marty Henry

The attitude of leave the hinds is quite strongly entrenched with many though.
Personally I shoot hinds in preference to stags better eating and the numbers definitly do need to be controlled.

look at NZDA code of conduct rules 30 years ago..... rather interesting in light of today.

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

look at NZDA code of conduct rules 30 years ago..... rather interesting in light of today.

A bit off subject but I joined NZDA about 4 years ago after hunting successfully for 40+ years, forestry company wanted their public liability insurance cover for hunting even though my own insurance gave as good cover, F##k me some of their code of conduct rules are the same as they were 50 years ago. Some of the rules are out of date in todays world of excess animal numbers, the same argument that was put forward in the deer culling and venison recovery years.Don't get me wrong, there's a place for the likes of NZDA and GAC. For a bit of context: my father was a deer culler back in the day working with the likes of Bill Chisholm and co., my godfather was a lifelong NZDA member. They were great mates but they certainly had some differances of opinion regarding herd management.

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

to some extent I agree...and to some,not so much....its borderline criminal for that to be shot via chopper for venison market and the head ground up for horn candy. if any foot hunter saw that stag,it would be shot and carried out.trophy of a lifetime.... now hunting stags post roar gives then chance to root and pass on genes,shooting them in velvet and stripping antlers does not...to me it is just about as senseless as stag hanging on strop under chopper or rotting in creek from poison.
but we all want to hunt roaring stags,for the thril of the chase ...at some point in our hunting it becomes the be all and end all,some stick with it,others dont. IM rather ho hum about it now.Ive shot some good stags but wont pass up another if find one. I will carry what meat I can. I wont kill myself doing so,thats silly,but if I brought out no meat,my Mrs would kick me out to sleep on street.
in some ways shooting hinds is even more playing gamble as cant see how good of genetics they carry... but yip they taste better.
when private blocks next door are locked up,there will always be deer migrating/moving back n forwards in and out of blocks,the riverbed areas are holding quite a few too,escapees and there multigenerational off spring.

Re the shooting of hinds with good genetics, a great hind has little impact on shifting the genetics of a herd compared to a stag just because she is limited by the number of offspring she produces per year. If we shot all the poor stags and left only the very top ones so that they covered 40 -50 hinds each we would see a dramatic improvement in antler genetics. Instead we shoot the good ones and leave the crap arse ones to breed. If you wanted to breed olympic sprinters would you choose Usane Bolt or Danny Devito as the sire ?

The managed wild herds in Europe that produce spectacular heads dont shoot the best stags until they are going down hill and are too old to hold hinds - 12 yrs +. They shoot all the crap ones out

Originally Posted by bumblefoot

I watched an NZ hunting vid a few days where they had to "cull a few stinkies" to do their part in game management. The goats were in a few mobs of half a dozen or so, as were the fallow deer. But of course; the deer were sacrosanct.... Surely they should have culled a few deer and just left them there like they did the goats?

most people are not great white hunters who follow the tracks in the blizzard and claps the deer with grand papi's 25-20. Most people would recover the deer or not shoot it.

@Russian 22 I would recover them too. But interesting that they would cull goats, but not cull the deer that were in big numbers

The situation strikes me as a case of poor communication from DOC at best and DOC having no f***ing clue at worst. In the seven years that I've had various DOC permits (yeah, not worth the paper they are written on), not once have I received any communication saying high numbers of animals in block X, or indeed any communication. How and who decides "numbers are out of control"? I'm a hunter, not a pest controller. DOC are going to do whatever the hell the like anyway, so why worry?

@MB About a year ago I rang up DOC Whanganui to inquire and clarify a paper road/access. They told me it made a change because usually it was people calling them to ask where to go looking for deer. They then said "But we don't ever tell them because we want somewhere to hunt too".... True story...