DoC needs to cull New Zealand’s ‘deer menace’ – Editorial
Barry Crump’s iconic 1960 novel, A Good Keen Man, was a literary sensation.
The iconic book was a fictionalised account of the raconteur’s tribulations during his deer-culling days in the 1950s.
While its romanticising of raw, stereotypical backcountry masculinity hasn’t aged too well, the livelihood it focused on seems more relevant than ever.
The industry is worth a relook.
Deer were introduced as potential trophy heads from circa 1850s — but the nuisance factor soon took hold. Soil erosion and native flora destruction sparked the official declaration of them as noxious animals in the early 1930s.
After a “deer menace” conference in 1930, state-funded employment of professional cullers was born.
Government culling and commercial hunting dramatically reduced populations, especially in the South Island, where it was estimated they fell to 5—15% of their numbers.
Today, the country is wrestling an ecological and agricultural crisis.
In Hawke’s Bay, a recent study of its wild deer populations found the animals were costing farmers tens of thousands of dollars.
The research, by primary sector economist Peter MacIntyre, showed huge pasture and crop losses, as well as damage to native plantings and bush.
MacIntyre said wild deer may be causing far greater economic damage to farms than landowners realise.
“There is good evidence from drone and helicopter thermal imaging that many landowners could have five to six times more deer than they think,” MacIntyre said.
“Once deer numbers grow from 50 to 100 and more, the economic damage gets significant, more so if they are getting 100% of their feed from your property.”
Pōrangahau farmer Sam Stoddart, who has 8000ha of bush on his farm boundary, told RNZhe had about 800-plus deer on his boundary.
“So a young kale crop will get pulled ... plucked out before it’s had time to establish,” Stoddart said.
He said if those 800 deer grazed on his land, they’d eat about the same as 1200 sheep, which could be making him $145,000 a year.
Therefore, with hundreds of wild deer on his land, he has paddocks he can’t put into higher-value crops.
“The numbers have just exploded. Now it’s got to the stage where we need some sort of Government intervention.”
The Department of Conservation’s wild animals manager Mike Perry said DoC actively managed deer in areas where they had the greatest impact on biodiversity, with about 200,000ha of deer management nationwide.
It’s time DoC ramped it up.
More specifically, the goal of Predator Free 2050 should be rescoped to include deer. They may be herbivorous - but they’re undoubtedly predatory.
How about another chapter of Crump-like culling with good, keen teams?
There are obvious dividends.
Surely, it’s worth a shot.