Thread: Pirongia Forest Park

Whenever I'm scooting around the web looking for likely spots, my eye always comes to rest on Pirongia...

Has anyone hunted there much? Worth a wander?

Contact DoC Waikato.

Used to have lots of goats around a few years back, might have been culled now

Get's more than it's share of 1080 these days.

Pretty sure there was a thread similar on here a while ago and apparently not much around.

Hi davetapson,

This thread from last year might help.
https://www.nzhuntingandshooting.co....st-park-58951/

I might add that I've heard there's a few deer on the Kawhia / Aotea side but I don't have any proof of that, and that's probably around the farm edges if so. I have spent around 700+ hours working in there though, between Kaniwhaniwha, Bell Track, and everywhere south /south east and I've only ever seen 1 red deer (with the exception of the released deer mentioned in previous thread). There are goats, seem to be a few coming back, I shot a half dozen a couple of months ago while doing some work around the plateau area off Bell Track.

Joel

Originally Posted by joelhenton

Hi davetapson,

This thread from last year might help.
https://www.nzhuntingandshooting.co....st-park-58951/

I might add that I've heard there's a few deer on the Kawhia / Aotea side but I don't have any proof of that, and that's probably around the farm edges if so. I have spent around 700+ hours working in there though, between Kaniwhaniwha, Bell Track, and everywhere south /south east and I've only ever seen 1 red deer (with the exception of the released deer mentioned in previous thread). There are goats, seem to be a few coming back, I shot a half dozen a couple of months ago while doing some work around the plateau area off Bell Track.

Joel

Thanks Joel.

There is a current alert that DOC are culling goats, so the few that are coming back probably won't be for long.

Yeah pretty sure it’s been bombed with 1080 recently.

I live on the edges of it - can confirm that it was poisoned with 1080 recently. There were a lot of goats there last year, however between poison and cull probably not that many.
Any deer that might be around are supposedly over the Kawhia side, I think a few escaped end of last year from a farm on the Te Pahu side but not sure how many.
Have spent some time in there on this side (TePahu side - never seen any deer sign, some pig sign about)

Goats don't actually eat poison pellets, so it's left up to hunters to control goat numbers.
Joel