Thread: .222 .223 .222mag .5.56.. THE CALIBRE OF CHOICE FOR MANY HUNTERS

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If you look at the top left hand corner of the Token Destruction Form there is an example of the worst type of bureaucracy.

I was paid 7 dollars for every deer I shot up to a maximum of $80 dollars per week. The $80 dollar a week target was set so that the Base Stallions were not embarrassed by the fact we could earn a hell of a lot more than them.

So once you had shot your 45 for the month you had achieved maximum but you could credit extra tails to your next months tally.
So thanks to the system, once I had a few tails up I would have from the 1st of the month until tail destruction day (28th) to explore far distant country. I once found myself 80 miles as the crow flies from base and 2 days to get home.

And so a poacher was born, an honourable occupation it is too, ridding the country of noxious animals. How can there be any crime in that. The grass is always greener over the other side of the hill as we know and the best hunters always seemed to me to be the most adventurous. To lie near my little fire up on the main range near the 'Sawtooth' gazing down on the cities of Napier and Hastings and wondering what everybody was up to was a regular occurrence.

Unfortunately the dear old deer in this day and age are shown far less respect than in our day. It is now fashionable in the name of Conservation to drop 1080 poison into our mountains and forests to target our deer. Have no doubt about this, it estimated
that between 20,000 and 50,000 deer are killed annually in this most inhumane fashion. This so called conservation has in the process pretty well destroyed the Wild Venison Recovery Industry with its dangerous aerial distribution of a residual poison that at many levels has penetrated the human food chain. This Wild Venison Recovery Industry was well able to keep the deer numbers in check as well as providing a secondary income for many hunters and it was worth around 200 mil a year the country.

After 60 year of 1080 use in NZ, if it was any good we would all know how good it was and we wouldn't have to create beech mast crisis and rat plagues to try to justify its use.

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