Thread: Thar extermination

Originally Posted by Tentman

Behind the current Minister's and DOC's (and many previous administrations) lies the dogma and ideology that "introduced species" are bad.

Maybe we need widen the public's eyes a bit and think beyond the current situation.

Are we (NZ inc.) really going to be able to shoot or poison our way past possums, gorse, mustelids, trout, rabbits, wilding pines, undaria, deer, tahr etc etc ??

What are the long term implications of blindly pursuing the current dogma??

I think we need (as hunters) to work to change this dogma in the eyes of the public. It's long term strategy but unless we have a proper conversation with all Kiwi's about all introduced species it will never end.

Ideologies like "pest free NZ" need to be challenged and reconsidered in various frames e.g. are they best use of resources (money etc), are they practical?? are they what we really want??

I laugh at Pest Free NZ. Especially when if it was possible, the rabbits would already be gone as the Mackenzie Basin Farmers have been trying to eradicate rabbits for nearly a century with (dare I say it) limited success......There is no way any of their stated goals are even remotely feasible without significant and dangerous developments in technology (biological has the most potential- Potential for success and potential for misuse). There in lies the scary stuff.

Any tech that is developed that will be effective enough to bring their goal into feasibility is one step away from misuse into a bio weapon of mass destruction against humans. Anything that has any chance of success will be either Viral, or genetic based. And consider some of the implications; What if we develop a perfect viral possum control for eliminating every possum in NZ- All it takes is a moment of thoughtlessness / carelessness and it gets carried to Aussie and the valued native animal is then extinct. Dont say it wont happen. RCD got into NZ. White tails got here. Snakes have made the trip. What happens if this effective killing development jumps a species barrier rather than a geographical one- Native birds feeding on the infected possums and the virus jumps to Falcons or Moreporks- Extinction here we come...And for a worst case scenario, bear in mind the hard part is developing a bio / viral control that does the task, altering it to change targets is a much easier task- Imagine if someone decided humans were a better target............. Far fetched as it may sound, there are people out there who want to nuke, bomb and cause maximum carnage against their enemies and we would become their shopping basket.

Its OK to have a goal, but for a goal to be any point, it needs to be achievable and as such their goal is a pipe dream. And for the amount they have budgeted for their project, it will barely cover the advertising bill let alone any actual effort.But they are so blinded by their dogma that they cannot see any real common sense or truth. (not that many of these people would understand common sense or be interested in the truth to start with....)

At the end of the day, here in NZ, our history is littered with people releasing things into the enviroment (with good intent) that have not been good ideas as it turns out. If we could turn back the clock, would we have released Rabbits to NZ? No. Would we have released mustelid to control them? No. But they are here now and are part of the eco system for good or bad. Our best efforts are going to be preserving as much of the flora and fauna that was here and reduce the impact of human mistakes in our past. We cannot unmake these mistakes, but we can try to make this country a better place.

What DOC fails to realize is that every time they cull/poison whatever an area, the pests just re-establish themselves. The only way to do this effectively is to expand on area's that are already fenced off. You can drop, helishoot and trap for ever but re-infestation will always occur. I live a few K's from the Hunua ranges and see rats running across the road in front of me at night all the time so the councils 1080 drop will do fuck all (unless you own an aerial spreading business).
They need to get real and accept that expanding existing sanctuaries is the only way that's going to save threatened native species.
All there doing now is shutting the door long after the horse has bolted.
They need to stop blowing there conservation cash on making NZ a "great walk' freedom camping shit fest nature, used to be wilderness disneyland, get out of the tourism business and get back to their core values

The Minister is diligently doing the job for which she has been appointed, albeit coming to it with an anti introduced animal bias. I wouldn't like that job with all the vested interest groups wanting different things.
Any decisions that she make will be based on the information provided to her by DOC staff and it hasn't mattered who the Minister is the attitude towards Game animals by those entrenched staff has always been the same. The last Govt allowed WARO in the best trophy stag areas here in Canterbury for example. Has anyone got information about how DOC comes up with the population estimates ? I have seen the flight counts but don't know how DOC interpret these and then come up with such a wide variation (guess) with their population estimates.
Is there any good science to counter what DOC are saying or are they correct ?. I am sure that the Minister won't want to find out that the info she has been provided is wrong.

Can anyone tell me what the total annual harvest of Trophy bulls is ??
Why I am asking this is because I want to write to the Minister with some basic population modeling figures.
There is a great opportunity right now to keep the right ratio of animals and hopefully keep everyone happy

In a totally managed Trophy herd:
For every 1000 eight year old trophy Bulls there will be 1000 bulls aged 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 coming up. 8000 in total. 8000
To produce 1000 young bulls every year only 1333 nannies are required given that half will have twins. 150% kidding 1333
Tot 9333
+(166)
Harvest: Shot 1000 Bulls
A further 166 young nannies as 8% female replacements are required but 166 old nannies would be removed. 1000 yearling nannies shot

In an unmanaged herd there would be approximately equal numbers of male and female, so for every 1000 trophy bulls harvested there will be 8000 bulls and 8000 nannies but we only need 1333 nannies to maintain our Bull herd and replacement females. We have a surplus of nannies of 6667. This means that in an unmanaged herd like we have now, that for every Bull shot we should shoot 6.7 nannies in the first year to hold the population and that is if we are keeping bull numbers in check.

These figures are subject to some variables I know, but regardless they will give a good idea of the ratio of Bulls to Nannies that hunters should take and that the ratio of nannies that should be removed in the cull is much higher than the Doc figures.
Sorry about the figures not being lined up on this posting, each time I edit correct and save they get moved out of line again and makes it look like a balls up

Execellent post Moa-Hunter, I've made a donation to the Tahr Foundation, they need to be applying thought and funding to ensure your thoughts on numbers can be scientifically supported. I suspect the debate needs data on their browse effects at various population levels. Good science is expensive, if we value our Tahr resource we all might have to "dig deep" to retain it.

@Moa_Hunter I know bugger all about tahr but a bit about sheep, goats and cattle etc, and I have a couple of queries about your numbers (genuine questions, I'm not suggesting your numbers are wrong)
150% kidding - is this realistic? Taking into account this needs to be survival to adulthood. If so, no wonder numbers have increased!
A 8% replacement rate for nannies would mean you are expecting them to live (and successfully breed) to 12-13 years. Do they? This one doesn't really affect the overall picture, even if replacement rate was 20% you still remove as many old nannies as you leave young ones so no net change in numbers.
Cheers!

Not sure if these will work. For anyone wanting a bit of extra info on how the count was done. Have a couple of excel data sets for 2016 and 2017 but unsure how to add them in.

Changes to Monitoring of Tahr Jan 2017 2.pdf
Item 2 - Tier 1 Himalayan tahr abundance monitoring protocol.pdf
Item 5 - Tahr density estimates from aerial surveys.pdf

Originally Posted by Cigar

@Moa_Hunter I know bugger all about tahr but a bit about sheep, goats and cattle etc, and I have a couple of queries about your numbers (genuine questions, I'm not suggesting your numbers are wrong)
150% kidding - is this realistic? Taking into account this needs to be survival to adulthood. If so, no wonder numbers have increased!
A 8% replacement rate for nannies would mean you are expecting them to live (and successfully breed) to 12-13 years. Do they? This one doesn't really affect the overall picture, even if replacement rate was 20% you still remove as many old nannies as you leave young ones so no net change in numbers.
Cheers!

Cigar you are correct on the replacement rate for the nannies, it should be 1/8th (12.5 %) not 8%. Thanks for spotting that
My uncle was employed as a Tahr culler for the forest service and had also worked as a shepherd , he supplied the data and made the qualified observations on kidding. The 150% kidding is correct and as you say survival to adulthood etc has to be accounted for(losses), however these figures do give us a good baseline picture of how a managed herd needs to work.
Further observations from the Forest Service were that it was the mobs of nannies and juveniles that cause damage and erosion. To the extent that hill faces could be seen running with mud pouring off in a rainstorm all caused by Tahr. This was because the nanny groups occupied the lower vulnerable slopes and would congregate (camp) in an area even after they had chewed out all the Tussock, their hooves cutting up the soil and loess.
The Bulls on the other hand caused little erosion because they occupied the much higher rocky zone which was eroded by frost and storms but not vulnerable to animal damage. They also occur in much smaller groups.
Gordon Roberts (field officer for the cullers) glassing from the creek bed counted 1700 during a single walk up Carneys creek

Just as an "outside the square" input -

People bang on that tahr are bad and that we need to exterminate them in order to "protect the alpine environment" - as quoted from Winston Peters' reply to the recent barrage. But are they? Are they really bad for the alpine environment? I admit I'm not a scientist and, no, I've not studied in depth the upper reaches of the Mt. Cook National Park, but the walking I've done after tahr hasn't shown me an environment that's devastated by unwelcome pests.

What if we assume for a minute that the research carried out to date has been completed by scientists in the paid employ of the government. Surely a most significant portion of any research must have been completed in this way. Or if we assume that the research carried out by non-government funded people were doing so with their own predetermined bias? Some may think me just a cynical old bastard and have no doubt, I am, but I've heard stories over the years of researchers being told to rewrite their summaries in order to tone down certain points of view - because payment for the work done depended on obtaining a favourable outcome to the cause.

What if pro-hunting groups did their own research and released "clear proof" that the environment benefits from the animals that enhabit the area? Looking at my own back yard I see clear proof that the complete extermination of the wild goat herds that once roamed the area was foolhardy - the wilding pines and other invasive plants are taking over at an alarming rate. In 5 years we've gone from tussocks to 10 foot tall pines. My high school biology lessons taught me that animal numbers are directly proportional to food availability so if the numbers are high is that not a clear indication that the environment is healthy?

If their range is limited - and clearly it is limited not only geographically but also by the tahr's preferred altitude band - then would it not make sense to define their limit of migration, exterminate outside those borders and allow nature and hunters to look after the rest? By my observation the number of hunters chasing tahr has increased significantly in the last 25 years and the resource is becoming more and more valuable as time goes on. With the advent of extreme sports we see a crossover where adrenaline and technology empowers people to be more comfortable hunting in the harsh Southern Alps. The numbers are going to balance out one way or another.

Wholesale extermination to an idealistic value determined by biased reseach in an era of ignorance without reconsidering the possibility of new evidence can only lead to the fullfilment of an unbalanced argument. The dreamers win - those who believe in the fantasy that we can turn back time.

Now that fake news is a "thing", maybe its time to denounce previous reseach as "fake news" and go out and prove tahr are good for the environment.

Originally Posted by planenutz

What if pro-hunting groups did their own research and released "clear proof" that the environment benefits from the animals that enhabit the area?

Not exactly "clear proof", but this is perhaps a start - https://www.facebook.com/huntersclub...06267502/?t=69

Filmed in an area that had plenty of Tahr 12 months ago, probably not so many now though...

Exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about @The_Hunters_Club , presenting evidence like this isn't in the best interests of tree-huggers who are trying to push for extermination so its easy to ignore it and instead take photos of chewed-off plants. I bet there are more examples out there too.

We need to present this as "proof of the benefits" - and who can say we're any less correct than those who would disagree?

Couple letters from me. Just have to sign and put in the envelope.
Hope you all can do the same.

Take a look at the Give a Little page too.
Hunting and Fishing NZ donation of $10,000.00. You little beauty.

I think it is critical that we raise funds (by the likes of the TF Give a Little page and membership of hunting organisations) to have ideas and observations like Moa Hunters and The Hunters club confirmed by robust science. Science and hunting may seem like unusual bedfellows to many NZ hunters but overseas they go hand in hand - because they (overseas hunters) value their game animals. Its about time we grew up (as a nation of hunters) and did the same.

We need "conversation" to resolve the divides that fracture and weaken our various hunting ideologies (e.g. meat versus trophy versus guided etc.)

There is absolutely no doubt that "money talks" when it comes to politics, and since hunters will never have voter numbers to change things, we are going to have to pay if we want to even maintain the status quo.

I'm sure everyone else who sent emails requesting information from the "Hon." Eugenie Sage got back their generic reply today as well. This was what i recieved as an attachment to the message.

"Tēnā koe

On behalf of Hon Eugenie Sage, thank you for your email regarding Himalayan tahr. Please find a response from the Minister attached.

Ngā mihi"

Yip same email I got.....piss weak