Thread: The state of pest populations in NZ

Here’s my 2c from a professional perspective. Animal numbers are certainly on the up across the board and the country. My thoughts on why they are on the increase, increased difficulty for professionals to get access, it’s harder to sell them due to increased poison application and stand down periods ( specifically broadificum), people are locking up land as they are selling goats live which is fair enough it’s their land, The price of venison for pet food is low at the minute, human consumption factories are busy with farm stuff at the moment and there isn’t as many of them as there once was.
Here’s some experiences I’ve had with landowners. A couple of farmers were having issues with deer eating their grass, pilot friend of mine was going to do some spraying so said we will shoot them from machine before we spray, we turn up at daylight expecting heaps of deer we only get 5, we’re wondering where all these deer are, turns out the cocky let some one the day before we turn up he shoots 5 and doesn’t tell us about it until we quiz him.
The same pilot constantly sees anywhere from 30-100 on various farms, he offers to shoot them for farmer, farmer finds it hard to believe there is that many deer on his farm, and says that his boy enjoys shooting the odd one so isn’t interested.
You talk to a cocky he is all keen for you to come out and clean up the deer, he will call you when to come out.... that was 12 months ago.
Cocky wants the deer shot, you tell him not to put any more broady out as the stand down period is almost up, what does he do? Puts more broady out, that’s another 3 years.
Most cocky want some form of kick back, I’m happy to pay per deer, but they have to play the game. One cocky wanted $300 per fallow, couldn’t understand why we were laughing at him, took us a couple of minutes to settle then pointed out we would be lucky to get $80-120 for said fallow.