Thread: Colfo Announce Firearms Registry Review

Originally Posted by Ben Waimata

@No.3 Do you know this for a fact? I ask because I heard the same stories, but did not know the people involved or all the details. It is possible the applicants did not fit the strict legislative requirements, eg "pest control on mates place" does not fit the legislation, "significant economic and/or ecological damage from pests eating my crops and/or forest and/or native reserve" does. I have spoken to the guys at PNHQ about this and got the distinct impression they have had very few applications in the land manager category, and accept the majority that come in that fit the requirements, sometimes after re-application to get the wording right. I don't personally know many people who have applied for P for farms but every one was accepted. Most of the applications I have heard of that were declined appear to be because they did not meet the even stricter "fit and proper" status required for P than for A, ie criminal record, history of violence etc, or did not otherwise fit the criteria;

a person who is the owner or manager, or is an employee, of an agricultural, a horticultural, or a silvicultural business, if there is a real possibility that the commercial viability of the business would be detrimentally affected to a significant extent by the presence of prescribed wild animals or animal pests on any land used for that business (subject to prescribed limits, if any). Arms Act 4A, (1), (j).

A lot of these people as I heard it were not 'commercial' but were family or otherwise closely associated with the operation of the farm. So, in that case - not employed, not a direct owner of the land in the narrow description so failed the first element of the test. When business doesn't operate in the same fashion that the legislative people dictate it creates something hard to fight against. These same farms are now reporting a noticeable increase in non-business animal spread and also in expansion of species that haven't been reported in those areas before. I note several farms in the king country are reporting small herds of red deer with fallow making an appearance as well where they have never been recorded before, and there are reports I've heard of Sika a lot further from their 'traditional' areas than what is their reported range. Closer to home (apparently no deer in the Kaimais), wallaby are spreading slowly and we have more deer of several species to chose from and numbers of pigs are going up as well.