Thread: Tahr cull doc betrayal

Originally Posted by 257weatherby

If NZDA want to increase it's membership base and have more leverage to get a say or influence policy, maybe they should try changing the joining fee structure to encourage new members to join in the first place - looked at joining myself, Christchurch branch, but why the fuck should I when they have an INCREASED fee over the regular annual membership fee. Only place I have ever struck that charge you more to join.

We do need one representative organisation that can manipulate the one thing that whoever would be in government, craves about all other things: election day votes.

Right and wrong, fair or unjust, moral or corrupt, sensible or blind stupid, is all completely irrelevant - the only way to force those with private agendas (or simply brainless) to act for the greater good, is to be able to exert political pressure. One organisation accurately representing it's members could do this. Join one and get vocal. Find out who your local Mp is, and get in their face, most of them have no idea ( this type of situation even exists in the first place ).

It's not unusual for clubs to charge a higher fee to new members - it covers the cost of existing infrastructure: think gyms.... NZDA has an infrastructure footprint, and indeed some very wealthy clubs based on owning ranges/properties withing certain clubs.

HOWEVER: I agree that it is very shortsighted to cut off new members - irrespective of any sunk cost or history; if clubs do not continue to pull in new members our future interests are going to be significantly curtailed for the sake of maintaining an old boys club...

Originally Posted by 257weatherby

If NZDA want to increase it's membership base and have more leverage to get a say or influence policy, maybe they should try changing the joining fee structure to encourage new members to join in the first place - looked at joining myself, Christchurch branch, but why the fuck should I when they have an INCREASED fee over the regular annual membership fee. Only place I have ever struck that charge you more to join.

Each branch sets their fees independently. As far as I know, the Christchurch branch is the only branch to have the absurd rule of charging a higher-than-usual fee to new members.


Try contacting head office, and asking to join the 'direct branch' instead.

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

its a funny thing,big numbers...a guy like myself even if I loved eating them would never control population as I will shoot the first couple then bonem out and go home.... would never get to areas with big mobs. normally the first deer I see cops a lead disprin and comes home for dinner.its only on a week long trip or where distance is great that I will leave them and keep looking for Mr Big.

Yep where as me on th coast would not go into tahr country for a meat animal due to the mission to get in there, and any tahr hunting I do over here is looking for a decent bull


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Originally Posted by Micky Duck

yes its sustainable but if we are currently shooting MORE THAN 2000 then a lot of guys who currently shoot wont have anything to shoot,or if we continue to shoot at current levels we will more than half population in one year..... that the issue NO ONE HAS A CLUE HOW MANY ARE BEING SHOT...we dont have kill returns on permits because people dont trust doc enough to fill them in...eg back when we had them a nice man from doc came to a deerstalkers meeting in Timaru...I looked at the kill return figures for my local block for previous year and I personally had shot 3/4 of the deer and ALL the chammy for that year....yeah right...pointed that fact out and next year no more kill returns on permits,its now electronic so no effort made at all to gather info.

There is kill return data from the ballot blocks. It's publicly available online for 2017. Note that about 50% of parties returned a diary, and the reported female:male kill ratio is about 1.5:1. These numbers are suspect as you say, because hunters have various motivations for lying to DOC, but it's all there is to go on. Because of the 50% reporting rate, you could perhaps double the number of kills from 500 and change to say 1000 over the whole ballot areas.

https://www.doc.govt.nz/pagefiles/21...ng-results.pdf

DOC tahr culling data is hard to find. It's not publicly published really, except for these numbers. https://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-re...hr/tahr-culls/
The most recent complete numbers from this are 2012-2013. 2013 is incomplete data.

From this, you can identify that from the Landsborough and Mahitahi/Jacobs sub-areas of the ballot blocks alone, DOC and AATH offsets culled 1375 tahr - more from part of the ballot blocks in 2012-2013 than all rec hunters at a best case of 1000 and change over the entire ballot areas did in 2017. For all culls in the 2012-2013 year, DOC and AATH offsets culled about 3,000 tahr. Note that these numbers are 5-6 years old, and given that the population has likely increased (I don't know; no-one does. There is no publicly available data to know what the population trend is over the last 5 years, just that it has increased since 1993) cull numbers have likely increased commensurate with that. In 2011-2012 DOC culled 2200 and change, the increase from 2200 to 3000 the next year may be indicative of an increasing population.

As stated, in 2011-2012 DOC culled 2200 and change tahr. TIG (Tahr interest group) culls appear to have been unusually active that year (there have been none this year and the one last year was postponed due to poor weather and ended up being fairly unproductive as I understand.) with culling in 5 areas totalling 707 tahr. The TIG cull in 2016 shot 196 tahr (I shot 19 of those). TIG organised culls in an unusually busy year for it totalled less than 1/4 of all tahr culled, at a presumably lower population level. It demonstrates that a massive effort would be required to make a more significant contribution to culling by foot hunters - 3x the participation or 3x the time hunted, to equal DOC culling - at a presumably lower population level.

Looking at those published figures, the majority of DOC and AATH offset culling recorded in the publicly available figures takes place in the Wilderness Areas, Westland national park and other areas where it is difficult for foot hunters to access (and the exclusion zones) - say 90% or more, with some bits and pieces on the East Coast - Godley/Macaulay etc - these may be locally high numbers or areas that are difficult for foot hunters to access, e.g. in behind Lilybank where numbers are massive on PCL but you can't walk there. DOC/AATH offset culling is a much greater reduction in tahr numbers in those areas where it has taken place than rec hunters during the ballot, and while some might hunt those areas outside the ballot, I doubt it's significant: when did any of you last walk into the Adams Wilderness area or the Landsborough?

Culling may now be occurring in other areas where tahr numbers are too high (per monitoring) and rec hunting is not doing the job to control them - there aren't any published figures yet to draw any conclusions besides wild speculation.

If monitoring shows that tahr numbers are declining towards or stable at the intervention densities, culling will be reduced (no need to spend the money, not justifiable). Given that culling is a significantly larger contributor to controlling tahr numbers than rec hunting, any reduction in culling would leave more than enough slack for rec hunters to have animals to shoot.

Originally Posted by gimp

I have to imagine those discussions are happening, but historically volunteer foot culls achieve relatively minor number reductions. It’s not like DOC has gone and shot all of the tahr, and numbers are back to 10k already. There has been an ordinary culling operation combined with a media release (?) from the minister referencing new monitoring numbers, there’s still opportunity for hunting groups to go volunteer to shoot a bucketload if tahr if we want to

If the numbers are too high, cull them I’m not hung up about that. But if DOC is once again ignoring a recreational stakeholder they are charged with actually fostering - rec hunters, as they did on WARO and AATH, then they should be called out on it.

Originally Posted by ethos

If the numbers are too high, cull them I’m not hung up about that. But if DOC is once again ignoring a recreational stakeholder they are charged with actually fostering - rec hunters, as they did on WARO and AATH, then they should be called out on it.

I absolutely agree that rec hunters can make a partial contribution to reducing tahr numbers and should be being encouraged to do so. I am not involved with the Tahr Interest Group or a representative of DOC so I can't comment on what is or isn't happening at all in that space - are you involved and can you comment? I'd go on more foot culls. I've been signed up for the TIG culls for the last 3 years but this year and last year it didn't happen for whatever reasons.

Today I went for a walk in the bush, a warm puffy wind from all directions and no good for hunting but that didn't matter. I thought about this thread while I explored a new place. What marvelous forest, big Matai, Rimus, Kahikatea even tree pungas in the creeks in a predominantly Black Beech, Canterbury Forest. We are all conservationists and lovers of the wild and unspoilt places far more than we are killers of game animals and yet we criticise DOC and, I am not without guilt. Is this a wise and constructive attitude ?. Would we prefer, all the Doc estate cleared and converted to farmland, to play devils advocate ? There have been some very good balanced comments to this thread today, is it a fair summary to state that we can all see a need for change to better representation for Big Game Hunters and a change in how the authorities view the hunting community.

I am still of the opinion that to do this we need a compulsory licence system for public land. What I thought today was that it might be a 'Hunting and Conservation Licence' with a split of licence revenue going to DOC.
My 2c

you do that and people who distrust DOC wont pay it flat out....for fear it will be used to fund 1080 etc a bit like union fees going to the Labour party puts some off joining.

many people dont trust them enough to fill in a kill return as it is. what the long term solution is I do not know,but pissing off the very people who are contributing to the solution isnt smartest way forward.

Originally Posted by gimp

I absolutely agree that rec hunters can make a partial contribution to reducing tahr numbers and should be being encouraged to do so. I am not involved with the Tahr Interest Group or a representative of DOC so I can't comment on what is or isn't happening at all in that space - are you involved and can you comment? I'd go on more foot culls. I've been signed up for the TIG culls for the last 3 years but this year and last year it didn't happen for whatever reasons.

No not involved which was why the question, did DOC consult or even mention before culling?

Originally Posted by ethos

No not involved which was why the question, did DOC consult or even mention before culling?

I don't know, however please don't imagine that culling is particularly unusual or completed, the job is too big for ground hunters to achieve. A lot of aerial culling WILL be required to get numbers back to anywhere near the level specified, so it's somewhat irrelevant whether hunters/hunting groups are consulted on every piece of work. I believe the way it used to work was that there was a yearly (?) meeting with all stakeholders and DOC where the areas that required culling were discussed in advance and options for organised volunteer culls were put forward. I don't know though, I don't sit on any of this stuff and it's hard to actually find out *who* the TIG (who apparently represent hunters on tahr issues with DOC) even are, let alone any contact details to talk to them.

As NZ Hunter has observed, NZDA don't represent all hunters but please note that his local chapter HVDA have been the prime movers behind taking DOC to court over WARO access which has had some success.

I think that the real problem stems in part from the fact that hunting is mostly a solitary activity and hunters tend to disagree about the best way to scrape shit off ya boots, let alone anything important

Originally Posted by 308

I think that the real problem stems in part from the fact that hunting is mostly a solitary activity and hunters tend to disagree about the best way to scrape shit off ya boots, let alone anything important

Bullshit

Originally Posted by R93

I have a question for anyone who went in the ballot blocks this year.

Did you see bulls holding large groups of nannies or several bulls to very few nannies?

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I'll try and answer to that for you @R93

I am by no means an experienced Tahr Hunter however I have done 2017,18 ballots in the Hooker/Landsborough
From my observations the average mob would consist of 2 Bulls of varying age/dominance and 3-4 Nannies, usually yearling and 2 older.
We took 8 bulls 7 nannies last year and 6 bulls 5 nannies this time. 4 Shooters.

Originally Posted by 308

As NZ Hunter has observed, NZDA don't represent all hunters but please note that his local chapter HVDA have been the prime movers behind taking DOC to court over WARO access which has had some success.

I think that the real problem stems in part from the fact that hunting is mostly a solitary activity and hunters tend to disagree about the best way to scrape shit off ya boots, let alone anything important

The real problem is that local branches are achieving more with DOC than the National branch. The National branch and committee should be building relationships with DOC, building a membership plan and fighting everyones battles. Local branches should not be left picking up the pieces after DOC shits in there beds. IMO there shouldn't even be branches. There should be one NZDA and regardless of your location you belong to one group and that ONE group works for EVERYONE.

The whole structure of a group should be about serving the people. You become a member of a group with the idea that that "group" "club" or whatever you want to call it its batting for you. Yet where is the National branch when places like Molesworth get decimated with 1080 and a local branch has to run a give a little page to get enough money to fly a chopper for a few hours to count the dead. Where's all the funding in fees going?

Situations like this the National branch should be stepping up and LEADING the charge. Forking out money to pay for repellant, or helicopter time. Thats the kind of group I want to be apart of. One that its there to serve its members. Leads by doing and inspires the members to promoting them in a positive light to non members.

PS those HV guys have done amazing job to date, But imagine what they could achieve with 50,000 other kiwis supporting them.

A key thing is - how much damage are current tahr numbers actually doing - Erosion of the alps has been happening for thousands of years and I understand that the continental shelf out from Canterbury has been made from degradation of the main axial range being the alps. They need to STOP simply blaming it on tahr or our other game animals.