trouble brewing

We've certainly got a fight ahead if we want to have a valuable Tahr resource in the future, and seeing bulls like this may become a rarity. Photo credit: Thanks to Ashlee Strange

We might now be facing the biggest threat to our sport since the 70's/80's. ​In this era of Sage, we have gone in a big circle. We thought we were past the destructiveness and “if it hops it drops” mentality. By this I am referring to the chopper pilots cleaning out areas. The 70’s and 80’s were particularly bad for it, when Heli-hunting really took off and we were left with very little game to hunt. My father always said my generation of young fellas don’t know how lucky we are. The hunting opportunities that exist now compared to his day are much better. A vivid memory was an old tacky looking Fallow deer head hanging up in the garage when I was a wee fella. I asked him why its not in the house, and he said its cause its not a very good one. He’d shot it on the Albury range. This is the Albury Park herd, and a characteristic of these heads is their split palm. This one had a bit of length, little palms, and the split palm. They were never imported for trophies- just for a meat herd. He got that one mounted, as at that time in history, there wasn’t much better around. Meanwhile in the house there were a lot better heads from before the days of the choppers. It would have been demoralising to have grown up in that era. Hunters seemed to have less of a voice then- there wasn’t any backlash from hunters from what I’ve heard, but I may be wrong. Nowadays when the Tahr cull has been proposed there’s a huge backlash from the public- and that’s due to more hunters. Yes, there are more hunters around nowadays where a lot of people see that as a bad thing, but I think it has its positives. We have more of a voice, and politicians are more likely to listen to us because we make up more of the voting population. Groups like DoC will consider us more in issues because we make up a bigger proportion of outdoor users.
The early 2010’s saw us have a game animal council (GAC) formed. This was a huge break through as we now had a voice in parliamentary issues. Game animals were now being recognised as for what they are- a valuable resource, one that needs to be appropriately managed. In high numbers yes, they are a problem- but where there is a small, highly valued, and sustainable hunting resource it’s a win-win for everyone. Hunters get enjoyment out of the sport, which in turn brings economic growth to more remote areas creating jobs and bringing money to the regions (for example the West Coast with a small population). Overseas hunters bring in export revenue which in turn we can use to enhance our natural environment. Many political parties who are environmentally leaning struggle to explain how we can pay for all their policies- and the unfortunate truth is that money spent on enhancing the natural environment doesn’t bring a return on investment (that’s not entirely true as there’s tourism), however there isn’t a direct return. Eugenie Sage is very opinionated and has her own agenda on how her “ideal New Zealand” would look like. She wants no introduced species, New Zealand back to the way it was before anyone stepped foot on our shores. That’s not a realistic goal, we need a balance between environment and economy. Times have changed since then. Yes, we want to conserve native species that are apart of our identity, but we must be real about what we want to achieve.
I’ve got several friends who are hunters in North America, and a lot are asking me about the Tahr issue now. Saying they’ve heard about it, and what’s happening. Explaining the whole thing to them is plain embarrassing. North America has nothing like that, and all the game is managed very well. They find it hard to understand, and I do as well.
If the government gets another three years in power, that would be damaging for us. She’s keen to get rid of the trout, and all game animals. Its amazing how much influence one person in the wrong place can have. That’s why as hunters, we need to keep the foot to the throat. We can’t afford to lose our hard-earned resources all because of one politicians’ agenda. We need to keep fighting even if we think we’re losing. And from what the NZDA has been saying, the pressure is working. It might not get realized for a while, but that’s life. Ignorance makes it hard to get our point across, but I am of the opinion hunters have the more balanced viewpoint. We realize numbers need to be cut back, but we want a sustainable well managed population. None of us wants to be telling the next generation we don’t have the opportunities now than what we did have because we did nothing. So keep fighting.