Thread: Minister of Conservation

The reshuffle may have got rid the silly fool Mallard but there is a new Conservation minister and its not great news in my opinion.

@Spanners can you move this to off topic ?

Originally Posted by Frogfeatures

@Spanners can you move this to off topic ?

Why? No politics in the Off Topic section and this certainly relates to deer, tahr, chamois....

Fair enough.
Can’t see anything changing with Doc, regardless of who’s the minister actually.
It’s become a bloated bureaucracy, top heavy with idealists, and frontline staff retired and replaced ( inefficiently ) with volunteers
Nothing bad to say about the rangers working the frontline, but they’re drowning.
It needs a new strong CE, and then to decide what actually it’s role is.
Like all bureaucracies it rolls on regardless of which minister is nominally in charge.

Originally Posted by Frogfeatures

Fair enough.
Can’t see anything changing with Doc, regardless of who’s the minister actually.
It’s become a bloated bureaucracy, top heavy with idealists, and frontline staff retired and replaced ( inefficiently ) with volunteers
Nothing bad to say about the rangers working the frontline, but they’re drowning.
It needs a new strong CE, and then to decide what actually it’s role is.
Like all bureaucracies it rolls on regardless of which minister is nominally in charge.

And if past performance is anything to go by, the new minister will most certainly not be in charge

Kiri is a hunter and had already earned respect from many hunters. The new minister lost respect in her last position from many in the police force. Time will tell but I think those individuals in Doc that are anti introduced animals are going to find it easier to get their way.

Surely this has a better fit with the last thread post: "Turkeys"

Originally Posted by Puddleduk

Kiri is a hunter and had already earned respect from many hunters. The new minister lost respect in her last position from many in the police force. Time will tell but I think those individuals in Doc that are anti introduced animals are going to find it easier to get their way.

BS she did a guided hunt to buy kudos and PR with the anti doc folks amongst us hunters was nothing more then a pr stunt that people fell for sadly

Originally Posted by Puddleduk

Kiri is a hunter and had already earned respect from many hunters. The new minister lost respect in her last position from many in the police force. Time will tell but I think those individuals in Doc that are anti introduced animals are going to find it easier to get their way.

Introduced animals are going to get hammered irrespective of who is minister. Because it is necessary.

We are at a decades long peak of ungulate population in most environments. The deer numbers in the central North Island need to be seen to be believed. Hawkes Bay ditto. Most of the sensible guys down south are reporting the same.

Sometimes you have to take a long view on matters like this and stop protecting short-term sport interests. I can take you to places in the central north island where you can walk all day and barely touch a branch in the understory of regenerative native. It’s fucked.

A balanced perspective is required.

Maybe you should have seen KA's Facebook post 5th June. Table full of freshly butchered wild venison.
Z
I think she listened to hunters voices more than any precious minister in the last few year few years.
I have friends in DOC and they enjoyed what I think they considered a more open 2 way conversation that KA allowed compared to Sage before her.

Originally Posted by Carbine

BS she did a guided hunt to buy kudos and PR with the anti doc folks amongst us hunters was nothing more then a pr stunt that people fell for sadly

She has been very vocal in support of many hunter led conservation efforts and has been open to leasing with hunters including such efforts as the tahr foundation management and Luke sumner deer control that's more that any conservation minister from the last decade. Who's you better option? She has to have been the best conservation minister for hunters as a whole. As much as I don't lean towards labour I'd rather her than almost any of the national party and she's sure as shit better than any greens.

KA was a good Conservation Minister, she walked her talk. I was gutted for her when she went down with cervical cancer, and impressed when she bounced back. But now gutted to have lost her from this portfolio. However none of this changes what is already well underway in terms of ungulate control planning, much of which was finessed under KA’s stewardship.

Read up on the Raukumara project (her backyard) if you are still having difficulty understanding.

Originally Posted by Stocky

She has been very vocal in support of many hunter led conservation efforts and has been open to leasing with hunters including such efforts as the tahr foundation management and Luke sumner deer control that's more that any conservation minister from the last decade. Who's you better option? She has to have been the best conservation minister for hunters as a whole. As much as I don't lean towards labour I'd rather her than almost any of the national party and she's sure as shit better than any greens.

public backlash (hunters mostly) nailed tharmeddon as far as im aware and a chopper trip for afew people to shoot 127 hinds instead of improving access to the region like i dont know getting the locked gate over the legal access route taken down so people can
access the region anytime and hunt and harvest all year round not just 1 bomb up and that should keep em happy. Access is key to controlling animal numbers no one is going to walk 20km+ just to shoot a meat animal or not many anyway. Money would be better
spent putting access into some of the spots with higher animal numbers instead we will just do the same shit oh hunters aren't shooting hinds so they breed up causing damage, 1080 drops every few years - rinse and repeat. DOC should own and run helicopters
and shooters and use where needed/necessary while employing 100's or 1000's of trappers, wardens, track cutters, hut builders etc get men back in the hills or even put a tally on deer tails would be better then what they currently do

Doc need alot more in funding to make a change and do something more then the shit they have been doing which isnt working as we are seeing, build tracks, huts, access roads into new regions hire 1000's of kiwis who would love to work outdoors in gods own
making it accessible and habitable(huts, tracks, toilets, campsites)

Originally Posted by Carbine

public backlash (hunters mostly) nailed tharmeddon as far as im aware and a chopper trip for afew people to shoot 127 hinds instead of improving access to the region like i dont know getting the locked gate over the legal access route taken down so people can
access the region anytime and hunt and harvest all year round not just 1 bomb up and that should keep em happy. Access is key to controlling animal numbers no one is going to walk 20km+ just to shoot a meat animal or not many anyway. Money would be better
spent putting access into some of the spots with higher animal numbers instead we will just do the same shit oh hunters aren't shooting hinds so they breed up causing damage, 1080 drops every few years - rinse and repeat. DOC should own and run helicopters
and shooters and use where needed/necessary while employing 100's or 1000's of trappers, wardens, track cutters, hut builders etc get men back in the hills or even put a tally on deer tails would be better then what they currently do

Doc need alot more in funding to make a change and do something more then the shit they have been doing which isnt working as we are seeing, build tracks, huts, access roads into new regions hire 1000's of kiwis who would love to work outdoors in gods own
making it accessible and habitable(huts, tracks, toilets, campsites)

Lol the RHA is easy as anywhere to get into there's never been a shortage of hunters there's it's hunters with there heads up there assess that lead to it. Access is hardly an issue. Access also destroys the remoteness of the backcountry. Nz has amazing access we as hunters need to accept that we can shoot and not fully recover animals when in areas it's not feasible. Plus the only true way to control animals is out of choppers unfortunately we let them just have free reign to do whatever which means targetting stags and leaving populations to do whatever they like.

Also comparing something like improving access which is super expensive vs a few chopper rides is a bit disingenuous as the cost difference is huge. What that does show is the willingness to use alternative options to search and destroy.

As for tahr I mean the use of foot hunters for control in high density areas rather than choppers shooting indiscriminately. Not the original tahr culls which yes 100% was the tahr foundation, nzda etc that saved our arses there.

Your solution to populations don't really make sense as putting a tally leads to what all commercial hunting does which is overhunting and low populations which screws rec hunters. If we really focused on control then aerial search and destroy is the most cost effective method by far but that's no good for anyone really.

Doc have heaps of issues but Kiri as a conservation minister atleast things didnt regress and if anything there was some collaboration.

The ideal situation in my books would be to see deer managed for a population that balances hunter experience, conservation efforts, and hunter opportunities. By focusing control to females in areas of high density.

Originally Posted by Carbine

public backlash (hunters mostly) nailed tharmeddon as far as im aware and a chopper trip for afew people to shoot 127 hinds instead of improving access to the region like i dont know getting the locked gate over the legal access route taken down so people can
access the region anytime and hunt and harvest all year round not just 1 bomb up and that should keep em happy. Access is key to controlling animal numbers no one is going to walk 20km+ just to shoot a meat animal or not many anyway. Money would be better
spent putting access into some of the spots with higher animal numbers instead we will just do the same shit oh hunters aren't shooting hinds so they breed up causing damage, 1080 drops every few years - rinse and repeat. DOC should own and run helicopters
and shooters and use where needed/necessary while employing 100's or 1000's of trappers, wardens, track cutters, hut builders etc get men back in the hills or even put a tally on deer tails would be better then what they currently do

Doc need alot more in funding to make a change and do something more then the shit they have been doing which isnt working as we are seeing, build tracks, huts, access roads into new regions hire 1000's of kiwis who would love to work outdoors in gods own
making it accessible and habitable(huts, tracks, toilets, campsites)

All you had to do to be in on that well organised cull you quoted was to go to your local nzda meeting. Are you a member?