Thread: Shooting to waste

I had a brief conversation with a local guy this morning, he's running a pest control operation covering 90,000ha of forest. !4 shooters, lots of thermal work, targeting mainly deer and goats. But the thing that really got me was he said the MPI rules are so complex regarding meat that everything they shoot just gets left to rot.

I've heard the same thing in Australia, commercial pest control guys are specifically prevented by law from harvesting meat.

I'm picking there are a lot of pissed off hunters reading this right now, does anyone have more knowledge of this situation across the country, and ideas of what can be done to address the issue?

chuck on back of ute.....phone call...come n get it guys,I KNOW NOTHING....

chuck on back of ute...drive past place where its wanted/needed and let it "fall off" ute...AGAIN I KNOW NOTHING.

the other situation the same is fish n game disturb permits for waterfowl...shoot and leave is rule..... and only allowed to shoot X amount.

Not quite right about Australia. Some jobs the animals are recovered and either put in a hole or delivered to a processor, other jobs the clock is turned off while meat is recovered and some jobs won't allow recovery because they think less animals will be shot as a result.
Currently the biggest problem is finding a processor who has an order to take animals

Originally Posted by Ackley

Not quite right about Australia. Some jobs the animals are recovered and either put in a hole or delivered to a processor, other jobs the clock is turned off while meat is recovered and some jobs won't allow recovery because they think less animals will be shot as a result.
Currently the biggest problem is finding a processor who has an order to take animals

I was thinking specifically about pigs in NSW, I should have said this. I think there is some issue with food safety in some feral pig populations?

I assume Australia has some equivalent of our WARO operations?

When venison prices are so low, the cash & effort invested to recover animals is low.

Recovery of venison from ground based night shooting on anything other than flat paddock country is a total nightmare.

The only economic way to to this is helicopter shooting, and that’s a tough ask in this low venison price cycle.

We couldn’t even get a pet food venison contract over the line recently. Costs too high, revenues too low. Simple economics.

For properties that have serious problems with large pest numbers, stopping to gut and recover animals all take up valuable time, which is time that is better spent culling more animals. Not such a concern with aerial culling but when ground based its certainly an issue.

When youve been employed to shoot as many pests as possible you need to do that.

Many hunter/gatherers would struggle with that.

Originally Posted by Flyblown

When venison prices are so low, the cash & effort invested to recover animals is low.

Recovery of venison from ground based night shooting on anything other than flat paddock country is a total nightmare.

The only economic way to to this is helicopter shooting, and that’s a tough ask in this low venison price cycle.

We couldn’t even get a pet food venison contract over the line recently. Costs too high, revenues too low. Simple economics.

The good work you are doing with your pest control is obviously in the same vein as this, but at least you spoke about harvesting prime cuts. It seems a shame that there is not some way that either private hunters can utilise this pest population (which is within an hours drive of a population of 150,000 people including some enthusiastic hunters), or that there could be some mechanism for distributing meat like the great stuff @Tahr does.

@Flyblown snap!

And then there's another layer of complexity added if your regional council has an active tb control operation and the placement of bait stations in relation to where the animals are harvested.

Used to be chillers all round the South Island with a chiller truck from Hoki picking up once a week. Shoot your deer, deliver to local chiller then get a cheque in the mail a couple of weeks later, not bad money either at times. No chillers now and plenty of deer in all sorts of handy places. Once again beauracry has stuffed it.
Sadly a generation of hunters are growing up with the perception that deer are worthless pests.

AS linked here very recently, our local NZDA gifted processed Venison to a local charity , mainly in the form of patties.
Yes, I realise that this was done by volunteer hunters, but surely the legal situation would be the same

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/...aeobPijs-H6cxE

I know for a fact that deer culled near chch recently had meat recovered, commercially minced and donated to a local food bank. But that type of thing is easy when close to town.

Originally Posted by Dama dama

I know for a fact that deer culled near chch recently had meat recovered, commercially minced and donated to a local food bank. But that type of thing is easy when close to town.

There is actually quite a cost to doing this 1st u haf to have a meat inspector standing by the chiller trailer inspecting then they haf to go through an approved proccesser b4 it can b donated a lot of extra cost if uv already brought a machine in to cull from

Originally Posted by Phil_H

Until someone does know nothing....and always, someone will know something......and when they aren't getting their share or are being overlooked altogether or are for some other reason disgruntled with the little operation....suddenly the authorities get to know something as well......

Cheers
Phil

YOU MEAN TO SAY...but are too nice of gentleman to do so....when some worthless ,self entitled ,low life ,pondscum,bludging melenial mememememem get s gready and/or starts on sell it........there is unfortunately always one.