Thread: Thermal Optics under scrutiny?

The rate at which deer (and other wild animals) breed means that it is a "forever" job to keep on top of populations, to whatever level is required to achieve the outcomes the values of the landowner or manager dictate.

The phenomenal amount of effort input through the WARO and live capture of the 70s and 80s reduced numbers nationally to a particularly low point, and they have slowly built up again since at a national level. This varies locally of course. Some places they were never really low, other places they have not yet built up again.

The economic conditions behind that effort were unique and it will not happen again. The effort-per-deer put into live capture was equivalent to the effort (cost) that would be put into a localised eradication project (eradication in the wildlife management specific meaning of the word) - many thousands of dollars per deer.

There will never be another significant "one off reduction" of deer numbers like the 70s/80s again - and it wasn't truely a one-off so much as incredibly high sustained effort over 10-20 years - additional commercial harvest on top of existing NZFS control.

It is an ongoing population that requires ongoing management. Management effort needs to remove at least annual recruitment to prevent increase, and significantly more than annual recruitment initially to actually reduce numbers and hence impacts to protect whatever relevant values. Annual being the key word.