Thread: Northland deer (again)

I agree that the vision of predator free 2050 will never be achieved, what it has done however is bring focus to the issue and there are large numbers of people including volunteers involve obtaining some awesome results.
The promotion of the idea has brought in a lot of people who would otherwise never been involved in predator eradication and is giving focus on some of the major issues we have in the wild.

I recently saw details of the feral cat numbers in some regions, a station where we hunt on record the number of feral cats, they kill each year and in the last calendar year it was over 500. They have a very simple trapping system which continues to work, but I couldn't believe the numbers. They do a lot of Wallaby control so this may assist with the cat numbers in regard to a food supply, but still large numbers. This shows the scale of the problem and how a population can expand rapidly, which is not surprising given that a litter of kittens is often 4 or more.

I have spoken in length to one of the senior people involved in the eradication of the Russell Forest Sika, he has a lot of experience in this line of control work and the program will give them the best opportunity to finally eradicate the herd, or the hinds, which are the main target. If you look at the full plan its comprehensive and I was surprised at the depth of information they had on the herd. I actually found it very interesting, and it changed my view on the success of the program.
I for one fully support the eradiation as these deer should never have been released.