Review of the Wellington Regional Council Regional Park Management Strategy

13th October 2006

NZDA would appreciate discussing our concerns with Council officers. NZDA strongly opposes WRC’s proposal that wild deer and feral pigs be made a Site-led Pest. NZDA makes this submission on behalf of our members and in the interest of other deerstalkers and pig hunters generally. Our Branches may make their own individual submissions. We address specifically wild (called feral in your Strategy) deer and feral pigs, which the Review proposes adding to the Site-led Pest category. NZDA opposes this proposed change.

1. High interest in Recreational Hunting in the Greater Wellington Region:

Recreational hunting and harvesting is a traditional and valued recreational pursuit in New Zealand. The first deer were released in New Zealand in the early 1870s, over 135 years ago. Pigs were first released on Captain Cook’s second voyage in 1771, 235 years ago. They have adapted well. There is a high interest in deerstalking and recreational hunting in the Region.

The Haurangi (also called Aorangi) Forest Park, north of Cape Palliser is a Recreational Hunting Area (RHA). It is one of only seven in New Zealand, set aside specifically for recreational hunting of wild animals. There are two other forest parks in the Region, Tararua and Rimutaka. Both are popular for deerstalking and pig hunting. Deerstalking is a recreational activity likely to bring hunters from outside the region to visit.

Forest Parks are publicly owned lands managed by the Department of Conservation. Forest Parks are one of the few categories of public conservation land where recreation has top priority.

NZDA Branches are strong in the Region and include: Wellington, Hutt Valley, Porirua, Kapiti, and Wairarapa. The following branches are on the boundary of the WRC Region, and often hunt in the public conservation land in the WRC’s region – Manawatu, Bush and Ruahine. There are other recreational hunting clubs that are active including the Horowhenua Hunting Club

So wild deer and pigs are highly valued in the region, both for recreational harvesting, and for the trophy heads and wild food they produce. Red deer is the primary deer species on public conservation land. But some Fallow deer are present on farms, and are wild in the Wairarapa.

A number of property owners on the outskirts of the Haurangi RHA, and of the Tararua and Rimutaka Forest Parks, keep wild deer partly as a recreational resource, and partly because they are attractive to have around.

WRC provides some opportunities, in terms of a hunter ballot, to shoot in the WRC Wainuiomata Water catchment. There are also opportunities for recreational harvesters to hunt in the Hutt catchment, and in the Pakuratahi and Akatarawa Regional Forests. WRC has taken an anti recreational hunting line in its draft East Harbour Regional Park Management Plan, even though recreational hunting has been carried out at a low level in the area of the park up to now.

Regional Park management plans take a negative view of recreational hunting, though it is allowed in some zones of Kaitoke Regional Park. This negative attitude now appears to be spreading to this RPMS.

2. Hunting Stand-down with Aerial 1080:

Whenever an aerial 1080 operation takes place on public conservation land, there is usually a six month or more public health stand-down for hunters harvesting meat for their tables. There is also need to take great care with dogs, which are very susceptible to 1080 poison.

These dangers and restrictions imposed on recreational hunters enjoying their legitimate activity on public conservation land are naturally resented. WRC pays no compensation, or makes any other compensatory gesture to recreational hunters for its destruction of their recreation.

Imagine the public outrage if say, WRC could do the same to rugby fields, or cricket grounds, and drop a deadly poison on them and close them to rugby or cricket for 6 months or more.

3. WRC pest control a major adverse factor to recreational hunting in the Region:

A major adverse influence on recreational hunting in the Greater Wellington region is the Regional Council’s Tb vector activities for the Animal Health Board, and partly paid for by regional rates. Deer are not usually found at high enough densities to be a Tb carrier. So they are not a target for such Tb vector control.

Though WRC uses bait stations on farm-land to reduce possum numbers, it resorts to aerial broadcast of the deadly 1080 poison when it comes to public conservation land. This makes deer an inevitable by-kill of WRC Vector control operations on public conservation lands.

For example, in September this year, the whole 13,100 Ha of the Southern Aorangi Forest Park, part of the Haurangi Recreational Hunting Area, was aerial 1080’ed by Council contractors, in a Tb Vector operation. Rather than use ground trapping, as deerstalkers requested, WRC used aerial 1080. The Health Ministry stand-down on taking meat will last at least till March 2007.

In the WRC Vector Control operation in the Northern Haurangis in 2003 deer by-kill was major.

The slow rate of deer number recovery indicated a deer by-kill of 70%. WRC did not monitor this by-kill.

There was also a WRC Tb operation on the whole of the Eastern side of the Rimutaka Forest Park covering some 12,000 Ha in February-March 2006. The deer by-kill of this operation is unknown, as WRC did not monitor it. WRC Tb operations treat deer as pests, not as valued recreational wild animals. The Health stand-down on meat was until August ie included the Roar.

4. Section 12: Site led pest category Page 26

NZDA Concern: Wild (Called feral by WRC) deer and feral pigs are proposed for inclusion.

Requested outcome: Remove wild deer and feral pigs from the Site Led Pest Category.

Our reasons for requesting this that deer and pigs not be added are:

1. Recreational hunting is strong in the region, and neither deer nor pigs are a problem.
2. Most of the land where wild deer and pigs are found is public conservation land. In some of it, the 19,400 Ha Haurangi Recreational Hunting Area (also called Aorangi Forest Park) deer and pigs have a special recreational status.
3. The Department of Conservation, Wellington Conservancy is manager of the three Forest Parks in the Greater Wellington Region. DOC as the manager of the 200,000 ha of public conservation land in the Wellington Conservancy, has a newly introduced national policy of encouraging recreational hunting to control wild animals on public conservation lands.
4. NZDA works closely with Wellington DOC to this end. DOC has not raised with us the matter of deer or pigs being at unacceptably high levels on the public conservation lands they manage. They partly manage the Parks, as set out earlier in this submission, for their recreational hunting value. Consequently, there is no evidence that wild deer or wild pigs are a biodiversity issue on public conservation lands. In any case DOC can make use of both the Conservation General Policy, and the Wild Animal Control Act. The term “pest” is not used in either of these Acts.
5. WRC Publicly Accessible Lands: NZDA, as the main representative of recreational hunters in the GW Region, has had no indication from WRC that deer or pigs are a biodiversity threat on WRC publicly accessible lands – eg WRC Forests, Water Supply Areas or Regional Parks. NZDA is told one of the highest concentrations of wild deer is in WRC’s Stony Creek Water & Soil Conservation Reserve near Tuturumuri. WRC does not allow recreational deerstalkers to access this area. NZDA asks why not?
6. WRC should Encourage Recreational Hunting: WRC would be better placed to follow the Conservation General policies of the Department of Conservation and encourage recreational hunting in areas where deer and feral pigs are at too high levels for biodiversity. This would reduce ratepayer costs for reducing any excessive densities of deer and pigs, should they occur. NZDA would be pleased to work with WRC to this end.
7. Evidence?: Wild deer and feral pigs have not been considered a pest in the past. WRC provides no evidence in this public consultation document that the situation has deteriorated since 2002, and that there is a need to add wild deer and feral pigs to the site-led pest category.
8. WRC extra rates costs: If there is no evidence that wild deer or pigs pose a biodiversity threat, why load the regional ratepayers with extra rates for this when there is no need?
9. WRC Conflicting Goals: WRC has a conflict of interest in that it can use this Site Led Pest Category as a reason for not limiting deer and pig by-kill in their Tb Vector Control. What safeguards can WRC give that this will not be the case? Given the antagonism WRC Pest Management has created among the Region’s recreational hunters, these guarantees will need to be foolproof.
10. Illegal releases are mentioned as a reason for having wild deer and pigs as site led pests. NZDA opposes the illegal release of deer and pigs into the wild.

Conclusion

Wild deer and feral pigs have a high recreational value in this region. Consequently, they are at low densities, eg on public lands. This high positive value and controlled density outweighs any negative value they may have on private land biodiversity. Public conservation land control lies primarily with DOC. So deer and pigs should not be “site led pests”.

Hugh Barr, National Advocate