Lol. Must be different to the south island then, with some of the thick shit I've found myself in while trying to avoid it. @joelhenton
Lol. Must be different to the south island then, with some of the thick shit I've found myself in while trying to avoid it. @joelhenton
Hi Allizdog,
There is plenty of thick bush all over New Zealand, but remember that thick bush doesn't necessarily mean it's all comprised of palatable plant species. Deer are quite selective browsers that concentrate their feeding on plant species that are palatable, the likes of broadleaf (Griselinia littoralis), Coprosma grandifolia, lancewood (Pseudopanax crassifolius), kamahi (Weinmannia racemosa), mahoe (Melicytus ramiflorus), putaputaweta (Carpodetus serratus), five finger (Pseudopanax arboreus), to name but a few of the woody trees. And they will consume these at all stages of the plants life, seedlings, saplings, and mature trees (certainly up to browsing height). The palatables become fewer, while the non-palatables increase in abundance. Those open areas of bush sure are nice to walk around in, but it's not the signs of a healthy forest.
Regards,
Joel
Last edited by joelhenton; 04-09-2020 at 10:28 PM.
Karaka seedlings are a good indicator plant here, they come up in huge numbers almost forming a ground cover, and you can see the damage to seedlings easily when deer or goats first show up. When the karaka seedlings are getting low, the deer and/or goat numbers are high. They also love nikau, I hand sowed many thousands of seeds before the deer arrived, had thousands of them up to about 1m high, almost all gone now.
Those who were ambivalent regarding the tahr cull(s) should take note. Tahr were the thin end of the wedge. Deer, tahr, trout and salmon will be in the crosshairs next.
Greens need to fu##ed off in the election and pressure put on Labour to stop this fundamentalist lunacy. Labour is going to win the election at a canter, which will consign Greens and Sage to the scrap heap where they belong, but Labour will have a stronger mandate than ever.
Get on to your Labour MPs and candidates and tell them how pissed off you are and will not vote for them unless they challenge what’s going on (as I have). Or just do nothing and watch our hunting lifestyle and future be destroyed in pursuit of some unachievable utopia for the greenies.
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