Thread: Maybe need to start shooting everything we see in some areas

Originally Posted by gilly

Interesting thread. Lots of great opinions based on practical experience.
My opinion is that aerial shooting is the only answer. There are just too many deer for private hunters to deal with. We have some fantastic hunters in the country. But the shear size of NZ’s back country makes it , plus practical consideration like jobs, families and other commitments, near impossible to keep numbers down.
In terms of private land it isn’t the holy grail many dream of. Don’t get me wrong access to these places are gold. You get plenty of deer. But…here’s my experience for what it’s worth. I have access to a sheep and cattle station. It is over run with deer. Often mobs of 40-50 are seen. However they aren’t stupid. They bugger off the minute you accidentally spook a mob of sheep. If you do get on to them a couple of shots and they are back in the bush. Spotlighting is the same. See a dozen sets of eyes, shoot 2 and the rest are gone. The only way you will reduce numbers is through 1080 or aerial shooting. But there lies the issue. I spoke to the owner about it. He wants the deer gone but the expense of a chopper to basically search and destroy without the return of selling the deer is financially unviable. So the deer thrive. We shoot a few. Nothing changes.
Just my experiences. But multiply this by god knows how many farms (forgetting about public land) and there are significant issues.

But how did that property that you hunt get to that point in the first place? Deer don't just explode overnight infact quite the contrary. Most of the time it is someone protecting them at some stage.
As for the owner wanting the deer gone but not being able to afford it. Well if you do the maths it doesn't take long to figure out roughly how much in savings they will make in regards to crop damage and hundreds of stock units worth of deer competing with farm animals for tucker they will save by removing some deer.
I do pest control professionally and I have yet to meet a landowner who was disappointed from spending money getting deer removed.

As for places like the Ruahines. Well the Battle for Our Birds has significantly reduced the numbers in 30000 odd hectares of the northern end. Throughout some of it the numbers now are rather low. With the pattern of an aerial drop approximately every two years for potentially a very long time, the numbers are always going to be low.
So you have the rest of the Ruahines. Throughout some of it the numbers are moderate and in other spots the numbers are far too high. But, when, not if, when the venison prices go back up they will get absolutely slaughtered. As it stood before the prices dropped some of the operators were getting 90% of the deer they saw at the start of the 6 month season. So no matter what at some point recreational hunters will lose out again.
But there are no fly zones in the Ruahines and I do agree with the likes of BRADS there, recreational hunters should be taking lead and removing as many hinds as they can.

You'll be surprised to know that sometimes the professional ground cullers are getting more than the choppers in some instances too in regards to price per head