Thread: TB control in Molesworth

Have been following this thread with interest and some disbelief at some of the ideas/opinions expressed here.
I make the following observations bearing in mind that my late father worked as a deer culler in the Molesworth/ St James area, Bill Chisholm was one of his bosses. His stories of the deer and rabbit numbers were hard to believe. We don't want to go there again. But I digress.
I have been lucky enough to have accessed the Molesworth station since when Bill Chisholm was manager right through to Jim Ward's present tenure. While there have always been modest numbers of deer and other species present, their numbers were reasonably well controlled due to farm management practices of the time. The idea was to be a pofitable farm after-all. Since Jim took over, management guidelines have changed under the guidance of DOC policy. I think that while Jim was happy to see deer about even he would have been concerned at the way deer numbers were increasing
While he accepted the continued use of 1080 as neccessary ( it has been used on the station for years ) for Tb vector control, I know from personal conversation with him, he was astounded/devastated at the numbers of deer deaths associated with the 2017 operation. Having spoken with a member of the OSPRI team I feel that he was genuinly aghast of the outcome.
I must state that I am opposed to the indiscriminant aerial application of 1080 over any land, but I am also inclined to the view that in all probability recreational hunters are not going to sufficiently control deer numbers on this station while it is operatingas a viable farm unit. This will in turn lead to the possibility of some form of aerial control in the future. I say this because of the current mindset of most hunters to only take a trophystag and maybe a bit of meat, while not doing a bit of population control by taking a hind or two out of the mix.
As long as the station operates as a stock farm it must do so to make a profit. While cattle are present Tb must also be controlled, it's an oprational requirement. I feel that OSPRI are making a genuine attempt to mitigate deer by-kill by trialing deer repellant and differant sowing rates of poison baits.
Again, I am strongly opposed to 1080 use but we've got to make the best of a bad situation.
We as hunters have great fortune to be able to access this beutiful part of the country in the pursuit of game but we also have an obligation to actively help control the animal population, failure to do so will only end badly for us. Many on here will remember the days of helicopter 'gunships' in the 60's-80's. We as a group are not the only ones with a vested interest in this area and we arn't exactly 'flavour of the month' so we need to show a bit co-operation with the powers that be.
That's some of my views. Let the flaming begin.