deer released into taranaki forests risking TB

… preserving … biodiversity … should be a priority - agree. So put personal moral preferences aside. Compromise. Collaborate. And lets get as many as possible of the various people out there who treasure the nz bush on board to make it happen. Language like "deer are a pest" "deer should be eliminated" will only alienate the very people we need to work with to make this achievable. I work with and around a lot of landholders/stakeholders who's views on a lot of topics contrast stongly with my own. But by focussing on our common ground: weeds, possums, cats, stoats, ferrets, rabbits we achieve a lot. I could jump on my high horse and criticise, for example, irrigation, intensification, spray & pray agriculture... but then we'd achieve nothing.

@waynowski I never called you an urbanite nor was I implying that you were - you could live in a haybarn on a Eketahuna farm for all I know. I said, "Sounds like the typical urbanite viewpoint I hear occasionally....". In my job working for the NZ Police I have to interview both rural and urban people. Your viewpoint on the deer population is one that I have heard many times by townsfolk. On the contrary, I have never heard a rural person say such a thing. They well may do so, however I haven't heard it. No sarcasm or criticism was intended.

So aside from too many pests, what's going wrong, in people's views, when you see a story like this one? http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/347798/fears-totara-trees-could-be-wiped-out-on-the-east-coast > Fears tōtara trees could be wiped out on the East Coast > [...] > Possum and deer are killing the ancient native trees and are also causing a decline in the numbers of other native plants and animals in the forest. > The Raukumara Conservation Park spans 110,000ha across the East Coast of the North Island and consists of dense, isolated and uncompromising terrain. > It has proven to be the perfect breeding ground for possum, deer and red goats which are causing major damage to the forest ecosystem. > Department of Conservation (DOC) biodiversity ranger Graeme Atkins said on a recent visit to a coastal section of the forest he struggled to find any tōtara that were alive. If the deductions of what's happening are correct then it's not just deer and goats, but are there particular reasons why hunters aren't keeping the deer populations down? How about the fur industry which many people keep saying should be great for controlling possums? Can anything be done to encourage them to do it better? Is this just a case where DOC, other authorities and stakeholders need to focus their resources and do a targeted job more properly?

Yes. Heard that story too. It sums up nicely what we've been saying about deer. WARO is effective in keeping numbers down to low* levels in open country. Recreational hunting is effective in accessible bush near population centres or where good infrastructure is in place. But the Raukumaras are suitable for neither approach. Too much cover for WARO. Too inaccessible &.remote & untracked for ground hunting. A perfect example of where another approach (possibly combined with facilitating ground hunting) is necessary. I've never seen deer numbers as high as those I saw in the Raukumaras:.20-30 individuals (not mobs) a day whilst tramping compared to 0-3 a day in the Uratawas and Ureweras. Given the incredible biodiversity there - add kiwi & kokako to the list in the radionz atrical - it pains me that precisely 0 predator & possum control is undertaken. *low enough for regrowth and recovery from previous high pressure to occur.

No question WARO is very effective at reducing deer numbers. When we were in Dusky Sound in the late 70's the impact was incredible. Over four months (spread over several years) of field trips into the area, we only saw one deer on the tops. (It was quite funny; I was wombling along a bumpy ridge line, scrambled over a boulder and almost stepped right onto the damn thing curled up out of the wind having an afternoon nap. Both of us got a hell of fright!) Yet there was still plenty of old deer trail to follow and records show that just a decade earlier before WARO operations commenced in earnest in the area, NZFS and Park Board staff didn't bother counting individual deer ... just the number of mobs they saw. A dozen in a morning would be normal. Oh and a great thread everyone! Good to see such a tough topic being discussed passionately, but without the personal aggro. In my experience hunters and trampers tend to occupy quite different domains in the bush. I rarely meet hunters (other than in huts) and I'll bet the converse is true for them; they rarely encounter trampers. As a result both groups probably don't estimate their relative numbers correctly. An old friend of mine did pest control professionally for several decades; 15,000 rounds through his rifle a year. And yet he was quite adamant about how important it was to prevent the animal suffering and took no pleasure in the actual killing. Quite the opposite, as the years went by he found it increasingly difficult to manage how he felt about it.

Hi everybody, Just stepping in for a moment as moderator. In my view, a reasonable person would take "typical urbanite viewpoint" as a criticism even if it were not intended as such. Let's agree, discuss, disagree, but do it with respect. 👍 Cheers, Matthew Moderator, etc

Yes Matthew, however what's wrong with anyone having a "typical urbanite viewpoint" if anyone has such a viewpoint?

Some of us live in the country some in the city. Thats bound to tint the glasses we look through a little but when we are doing what this website was set up to do we are all trampers. We need to work together as such and in reality for NZ at least we all have a reasonable understanding of how it all works. "Urbanite viewpoint" could only apply to someone that has no appreciation of the "country bumpkin viewpoint" and visa versa, where in NZ neither completely exist As such Matthew was correct to step in as that comment had the potential to inflame discussion even if that was not intended.

Fair enough greeves, I can comprehend your reasoning. However, as I pointed out earlier there was no criticism of waynowski intended as it wasn't directed at him personally. There was no need for anyone to step in and add to that.

Kia ora koutou, Just getting back to this as I've actually been away tramping for once. @sako1952, When you say, "There was no need for anyone to step in and add to that", well I was acting in response to a complaint. When I receive a complaint, I read the situation and either do something or do nothing. I can close threads, delete threads, delete messages, add warnings, suspend accounts etc. However, heavy handed moderation is usually counter-productive. In this case, I chose to add my view (as moderator) of what a reasonable person might think, which is almost the least I can do. I appreciate @sako1952 that you may not have meant your comment as a criticism. However I can't get inside your head. And we all sometimes say things that are interpreted differently from how we intended. You are welcome to disagree, but my remarks stand.