28th August 2006
There are many NZDA Branches around this Park, and all can hunt in the Park. Those within 300 Km of the Park include: North Canterbury, Ashburton, Malvern, Rakaia, South Canterbury, West Coast, Southern Lakes, Blue Mountains, Southland, Otago, Gore and Districts, South Otago, North Otago, Palmerston, Western Southland.
If you are hearing submissions, NZDA wishes to be heard in support of this submission.
1. Long history of big game hunting in the Park area:
The Mt Aspiring area is historically an iconic one for Red deer and chamois, having had trophy deer and chamois in the area long before it became a national park. The area is well suited to wild Red deer and chamois, with both rugged forest and tops. Red deer liberations in west Otago date from 1871, from sires from Scotland. Chamois liberations in New Zealand date from 1907 in the Mt Cook region, in order to provide good hunting especially for tourists. Mt Aspiring National Park was established in 1964, over a significantly smaller area than it is now.
There is also a small herd of Whitetail (Virginian) deer established in the early 1900s in the Rees and Dart State Forest. They have not extended their range in that time. They are important as one of the two established Whitetail herds in New Zealand.
Himalayan tahr have been present in the Park area in the past. The current tahr management policy aims to restrict tahr to the northern side of State Highway 6. Only a small number of tahr are likely to be in this sector of the Park, as target densities for tahr here are low. Still some recreational hunting pressure can be applied eg in the Wills – Mt Brewster area.
2. Deer Management for the last 30 years by recreational hunting and commercial carcass recovery:
The high population of deer throughout New Zealand was reduced by the superior search and recovery technology of helicopters. This took place from the mid 1960s to the early 1970s. Populations have been kept at low levels ie about 250,000 nationwide by a combination of recreational harvesting and commercial recovery since. See eg
Nugent G (1988) “Hunting in New Zealand in 1988 Survey Results” Forest Research Institute Report for Deer industry stakeholders (NZDA, Game Industry Board, Mair Foods Ltd, Taimex Trading Co, NZ Acclimatisation Socs);
Nugent G, Fraser K W (1993) “Pest or Valued resource: Conflicts in Game Management” NZ J of Zoology 20, Pages 361-366.
The Nugent model postulated that, since the mid 1970s, the national deer herd had been at a stable level of around 250,000 wild deer, primarily on public conservation land. Because of the low numbers (2-4 deer per sq km), reproduction rates in most seasons were probably near maximum at nearly 30% annually. The natural increase, between the mid 1970s and 1988, was harvested by a combination of recreational deerstalking (55,000 animals/year) and helicopter carcass and live animal recovery (20,000 to 30,000 depending on market price and numbers).
It is likely that the national deer herd numbers were pushed lower by live animal recovery in the mid 1980s when live deer were worth $2,000/head. This made 2-3 hours search/animal recovered still economic. There have been no further data assessments done by DOC or other stakeholders, since the 1988 deer kill data collection and assessment. With the reduction in wild deer carcass recovery since 2002, deer numbers may have risen.
3. Temporary Low Commercial Recovery since 2003:
Since 2003 low prices for venison on European markets plus 1080 and Brodifacoum contamination worries, have restricted helicopter deer carcass recovery, as has the higher cost of fuel. However, commercial helicopter carcass recovery becomes more economic as both deer numbers and European venison prices rise.
4. DOC Over-reaction to temporary increase in Deer Numbers:
DOC and Forest and Bird are already applying “deer menace” scare tactics (See eg Ex Director General Hugh Logan’s Sanderson Memorial lecture to the Forest & Bird AGM (deer doubling every 2 years) 24 June 2006, DOC National Deer Management Officer Keith Briden’s presentation to the NZ Conservation Authority, 10 August 2006 where exponential S curves are presented for Fiordland, with no suggestion of wild helicopter recovery restarting).
Helicopter carcass recovery is likely to start again in the next year or two, because of a combination of both positive price factors – better overseas prices, higher deer numbers. The future is not dark, as some DOC managers want the public to believe. The ex DG and Keith Briden’s statements look increasingly like a non science based attempt to secure extra DOC funding for deer control, based on bogus emotional assumptions.
Though the future equilibrium size of the national herd may be higher than in 1988, at the high point of live deer recovery prices, it is still likely to be at low and sustainable levels in terms of native vegetation browse.
5. Impact of the General Policy for National Parks Section 4.3 (j):
This is the first review of the Plan under the 2005 General Policy for National Parks (GPNP). National parks still have an unrealistic statutory responsibility to exterminate recreationally valued wild animals such as deer, tahr and chamois. This dates from the 1952 Act, when wild deer herds nationwide were probably 10 times larger than they are today, and were a threat to native ecosystem regeneration.
This is not the case today thanks to consistent harvesting by recreational hunters and helicopter recovery. But the National Parks Act still does not acknowledge the recreational value of these species, whereas it does for instance for the similarly introduced species trout and salmon.
Both recreationally valued wild animals and trout and salmon have now well over 100 years of history of successful acclimatisation to New Zealand. It is clear that extermination of these animals is very expensive if possible at all. And it is politically unacceptable to a significant section of the recreational public.
It is therefore time the National Parks Act recognised the recreational value of wild deer, chamois and tahr. If recreational and commercial hunters can crop the annual natural increase, then deer numbers are capped, and costs on the taxpayer are reduced. This has been largely the case since the early 1970s.
The GPNP recognises this in Section 4.3 (j) “Recreational hunting of wild animals (viz primarily deer, chamois, tahr as recreationally important in Mt Aspiring) and animal pests should be encouraged where this does not diminish the effectiveness of operations to control them and is consistent with planned outcomes at places”
Conservation Minister Chris Carter encouraged us directly at NZDA’s July Conference by encouraging both that deerstalkers take more deer, and that deerstalkers and DOC work together managing deer.
NZDA strongly supports this inclusive policy for the Park, especially given the deer, chamois and tahr were in the area long before the area was declared a national park. NZDA asks that the new Plan have methods to implement this section by having a range of methods to encourage deerstalking in the Park. NZDA requests that recreational deerstalking has priority over commercial recovery in more accessible areas of the Park.
This would encourage deerstalkers to hunt in the Park, and also encourage new deerstalkers. It would also recognise this historic and traditional activity in the Park dating back to the 1920s.
NZDA asks that this more consensual approach to what has often been a conflict prone issue in the past be given due weight. It is best to have hunters, as major recreational stakeholders, acknowledged and encouraged, than to try to eliminate their recreation from the Park without good reason.
6. Don’t attempt to exterminate:
Encourage recreational hunting instead: From various personal observations of verdant vegetation, and the lack of deer trails, deer numbers in the Park have not been high in the major valleys of the Matukituki, Dart, Wilkin, Makarora, Blue and Young over the last 30 years. What deer/chamois there are provide a valuable and historic recreational hunting resource. Other accessible areas include along SH 6, the Burke and Wills Valleys, the west coast valleys of the Okuru, Turnbull, Waiatoto, Arawhata, Forgotten, Cascade.
As per the General Policy for National Parks Section 4.3 (j), the Plan should encourage and facilitate recreational hunting in appropriate areas. NZDA believes the valleys listed above are certainly “appropriate” being readily accessible, and with some deer. No official estimates of deer in different parts of the Park appear to be available.
New Zealand’s 50,000 recreational big game hunters can and have taken a significant amount of the natural deer increase (30% annual increase when there are ideal feed conditions, and less than this otherwise) as shown by Forest Service/Landcare research referred to above.
Means of encouraging recreational hunting include:
- More hunters’ bivvies/huts in areas historically supporting deer herds (sites need to be discussed with hunter groups)
- Ability for hunters to fly in to remoter sites
- Better public access for vehicles in appropriate places,
- Giving hunters priority over commercial recovery in more accessible areas
- DOC newsletters for hunters
- Information sharing meetings with hunters and other liaison arrangements with recreational hunting organisations eg NZDA and branches, etc.
- Employing bait stations to remove pests rather than aerial indiscriminate poisoning
- Restricting helicopter flights in recreational deerstalking areas on weekends and holidays – helicopters disperse deer on the tops, and they may take several days to relax again
It is also important for the longer term that there are always areas available for recreational hunting in the Park to encourage continuity of interest in recreational hunting. Mt Aspiring Park, because of its hard rock nature, is less damaged by deer than some other sites.
7. Key Places and Place Based Management:
DOC Management will be place based from now on, as decided in the Conservation Lands General Policy. It will also be integrated conservation management (GPNP, p 12). Such management should have recreational hunting as part of that integration to manage big game numbers.
The Dart, Rees, East and West Matukituki, Wilkin, Young, Arawhata, Turnbull, Burke, Wills and Makarora valleys, and their connecting passes and tributaries, are all special places in the Park, and they are places suitable for recreational hunting control, given their ready public access.
Some parts of the Park are remote, and provide for remote deerstalking. DOC should allow hunter access for recreational hunting. The upper Arawhata is a gazetted wilderness area (Olivine Wilderness), for instance, where aerial recreational access is prohibited. The Waiatoto and much of the western side of the Park is very remote, but can hold deer.
8. Air Access:
This is an issue. An aerial access strategy needs to be developed. It should have areas with no air access and no over flying eg where people numbers are high on the ground. It should also address air access for recreational hunting in remote areas. It should also not allow helicopter over flying and landings at weekends and holidays, or at certain times of the year, to encourage recreational hunters, so that deer are not distracted or put to flight.
9. No Additions to the Park:
Given the punitive and unrealistic deer eradication policies that apply in all national parks, NZDA opposes any further additions to the Park.
10. Don’t add Dart SF to the Park:
It is also desirable to propose the protection of this recreational herd in the Dart State Forest, and that the Dart SF not be added to the Park, unless an accommodation to protect for the Whitetail herd in the National Park can be made. If the area was added to the Park, without protection for the whitetail, then policies of eradication of the herd could be proposed, to the detriment of recreational hunters.
11. Mainland Islands and Operation Ark Areas:
There is an Operation Ark area in the Dart Valley primarily to protect mohua (yellowhead). At present the Dart area is being managed by integrated pest management (rats, stoats and rat explosions due to beech forest seed mast years) that relies on trapping and poison bait stations. Aerial 1080 is a last resort. But NZDA is concerned it would have an adverse effect on deer in the valley.
12. Protect the Dart State Forest Whitetail Herd:
This herd is primarily outside the Park. Because it is one of only two Whitetail herds in New Zealand, it is highly valued by deerstalkers. It has been in the Dart-Rees as a recreational hunting resource for almost 100 years. Protecting adjacent land could be used as a pretext to remove the Whitetail deer herd in the Dart State Forest. This is an important and valued historic herd, one of only two in New Zealand (the other is on Stewart Island). This herd should not be put at risk. DOC has a statutory responsibility to foster recreation, which includes deerstalking.
13. Dart/Routeburn-Hollyford Tunnel:
This is a private commercial intrusion into a public National Park. The matter needs to be fully addressed by a resource consent hearing, if it proceeds.
Conclusion: Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the directions of the new Plan.
Hugh Barr, National Advocate