Advocacy Alert: MPI's New Deer & Pig Programme

Many moons back, I had access to a magic wee spot in the Sounds. We were allowed to shoot anything, but the deer numbers were low so we were selective. But the goats and the pig's were fair game, and they copped it. Didnt take long until we knew where the goats were, how to "corner" them, and where they would run to. We shot shitloads, like I mean shit loads, 99% was all to waste. No thermals, no fancy gear, just a good accurate rifle and knowing how to go about it. Now you would be lucky to find a goat or 2 on that property.

After a few years I was absolutely sick of the slaughter and didnt shoot another goat for 20 years, until one day on another Marlborough property that I was working on. Come across a mob of goats coming down for a drink. Had the 222 single shot on board so thought I would do the cocky a favour, shot 7 goats with 6 shots.

I think recreational hunters need to be part of the solution, theyre not pivotal, but each and every animal shot in those situations is a dead animal. In my hunting circles I just dont see enough of the recreational hunters that have the ability or the situational awareness to shoot huge numbers to waste. Theyre too busy trying to bloody range or dial at stupid ranges, they fuck around with their bipod/tripod, theyre not familiar enough with their gear, too busy trying to set up their phone or camera so they can show all their mates or put it up on social media. And when actually shooting, there is no follow through, no awareness of where the next target is, or they have their scope wound up too high.

Having said all that, I also hunt with a number of good hunters, good shooters, that are fully aware of whats happening when shooting to waste. Most dont shoot beyond 200-250, most dont range or dial, its just point and shoot, rinse and repeat until the animals are all down. Or the survivors have departed the scene, so the hunt part starts again until the next lot are found.

How do we get more recreational hunters to shoot to waste effectively.....I dont know, but we do need to be part of solution to the "deer problem". Maybe more education, maybe more involvement is shooting courses, maybe teach them old school - PBR, low power scopes, max 250 metres, situational awareness, maybe a separate spotter. As for 10.15 on the video, capture pens, thats just too many for ground or heli shooters.

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Originally Posted by Husky1600#2

Many moons back, I had access to a magic wee spot in the Sounds. We were allowed to shoot anything, but the deer numbers were low so we were selective. But the goats and the pig's were fair game, and they copped it. Didnt take long until we knew where the goats were, how to "corner" them, and where they would run to. We shot shitloads, like I mean shit loads, 99% was all to waste. No thermals, no fancy gear, just a good accurate rifle and knowing how to go about it. Now you would be lucky to find a goat or 2 on that property.

After a few years I was absolutely sick of the slaughter and didnt shoot another goat for 20 years, until one day on another Marlborough property that I was working on. Come across a mob of goats coming down for a drink. Had the 222 single shot on board so thought I would do the cocky a favour, shot 7 goats with 6 shots.

I think recreational hunters need to be part of the solution, theyre not pivotal, but each and every animal shot in those situations is a dead animal. In my hunting circles I just dont see enough of the recreational hunters that have the ability or the situational awareness to shoot huge numbers to waste. Theyre too busy trying to bloody range or dial at stupid ranges, they fuck around with their bipod/tripod, theyre not familiar enough with their gear, too busy trying to set up their phone or camera so they can show all their mates or put it up on social media. And when actually shooting, there is no follow through, no awareness of where the next target is, or they have their scope wound up too high.

Having said all that, I also hunt with a number of good hunters, good shooters, that are fully aware of whats happening when shooting to waste. Most dont shoot beyond 200-250, most dont range or dial, its just point and shoot, rinse and repeat until the animals are all down. Or the survivors have departed the scene, so the hunt part starts again until the next lot are found.

How do we get more recreational hunters to shoot to waste effectively.....I dont know, but we do need to be part of solution to the "deer problem". Maybe more education, maybe more involvement is shooting courses, maybe teach them old school - PBR, low power scopes, max 250 metres, situational awareness, maybe a separate spotter. As for 10.15 on the video, capture pens, thats just too many for ground or heli shooters.

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Nowadays I don't enjoy it. I like the animals to go to a good cause. Two properties we shoot wallabies on want us to cull deer as we go. Every time we both start off with a hiss and a roar but after about 3 each we are over it so just ignore them.When hunting for meat I do target females though.

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Originally Posted by Micky Duck

So again..they are not being shot to waste....so own worst enemy.untill the decision has been made to do so and decent attempt made I don't believe they have grounds to complain about numbers being too high.

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Ye MD they just out to get a few meat animals.Dont have the ammo n fire power to shoot to waste deer.Man real needs a 308 suppressed M16 30 shot mag to get the numbers down quick,plan of attack.This fucking around with 3 shot bolt action rifles just not going to cut it.

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Originally Posted by Tahr

I mentioned the Parapara earlier.
Here's the scope of the problem on this vid. Watch it right through to get an idea of the numbers. 1,500 off this property previously, and allowing private access. Can guys like this and similar control these numbers?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WHMst2mBh0

Look at 10.15 on the vid.

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MD’s opening statement in post #62 hits the nail on the head. Simple answer is no, not when they piss around like that. Numbers like that require shooting to waste or a bigger/better team, 1-2 shooters with a follow up crew to recover meat if that’s the way you want to go. Maybe those guys are more efficient when they’re not doing YouTube videos, who knows. Shooting to waste may not be palatable to some but a necessary reality where numbers are that high.

I see a place for a return of a form of E-category in all this. Not the solution by itself, this is going to need a jigsaw of many interlocking pieces to solve, but it is one of the tools that should be in the toolbox.

Nothing has changed, used to be picking up hay Western Bays Taupo hundreds of rabbits, pigs in the paddock as we drove around loading trucks.
Unloading at a barn on the side of the road, rabbit board go up and back shooting, we drove after them back to paddock counted 50 live rabbits on the road maybe 1km.
Can we hunt.
No
Then they have a problem.
We lived not far away, family farm didn't have a problem, rabbit board guys would call in have smoko with parents then lunch.
Give dad some ammo "your boys are on top of them"
This keeping it for your mates doesn't work.
But not shooting any is no way as effective as at least shooting one.
A good start would be to improve access to public that is blocked by private, the unformed legal roads open them mark them.

In the late 70s around Twizel,3 of us guys use to herd rabbits into a 30% corner of a paddock.Rabbit stacked up to the top of the rabbit proof netting about 3 mtrs back from the corner.We would wear leather cloves and club the younger looking ones on the head.Kill about 200 a trip or muster if you like.Behind us were 1000s of rabbits running the opposit way passed us.We did that musta about 5 times,had to dig a big hole each time to bury the guts.Rabbit pie was ok a few time,cats got well feed.So many rabbits around Twizel in the 10000s in those days,you coud count about 15 to 20 black one driving around the canel roads on one trip.

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Originally Posted by Trout

In the late 70s around Twizel,3 of us guys use to herd rabbits into a 30% corner of a paddock.Rabbit stacked up to the top of the rabbit proof netting about 3 mtrs back from the corner.We would wear leather cloves and club the younger looking ones on the head.Kill about 200 a trip or muster if you like.Behind us were 1000s of rabbits running the opposit way passed us.We did that musta about 5 times,had to dig a big hole each time to bury the guts.Rabbit pie was ok a few time,cats got well feed.So many rabbits around Twizel in the 10000s in those days,you coud count about 15 to 20 black one driving around the canel roads on one trip.

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Did the calicivirus nail them in the end.

I've got a cobber involved in the Banks Peninsula pig programme. They tried Rec hunters (hopelesss) so called professional pig hunters (almost as hopeless), helicopters (expensive with only mediocre long term results). The solution actually working just now with significant control achieved are high tech monitored capture pens operated over a wide number of co-operating landowners in accordance with a planned strategy.

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Originally Posted by erniec

Did the calicivirus nail them in the end.

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Dropped the numbers back abit for a year or 2 with hard winters.They do breed fast tho,one pair can generate about 300+ rabbits in 2 years with off spring down the chain breeding.That result with only about a 60% servival rate.

When I took over my property in the Taranaki, I guess the previous owner had seen the goats as sellable and an extra cash income. Which I felt was a foolish perspective as they were for most of the property difficult or impossible to muster, and the place was running twice the goats it was sheep. Worms, lower stocking rates, grazing best paddocks, fence damage etc far out weighed any income return. But there was thousands and mobs well above 50 each.

My philosophy and, I know deer are harder to hunt, but fallow are not that much harder when in those numbers and similar country, was to break it down to achievable goals. First I felt I needed to kill more than 1000 a year, so 120 a month became 4 a day. Suddenly it became achievable. I could easily do 4 a day without really adding workload to my routine.
Of course I wasn't shooting 4 a day, I stayed well ahead of that by organising guys on the weekends to come shoot, and they/we did, 50-100 a day with me carrying my rifle weekdays always topping up those 4 while fencing or shifting ewes or just driving around farm. They hated shooting the kids, But appreciated the access and being able to shoot lots, so I shot the kids to assuage their guilt.
Very quickly I had to lower my yearly goal, but for 5 years I maintained 1000 though it ment I had to push into the doc land to achieve it. We took some 8000 in those first years, and then suddenly one year it dropped to 670 odd and after that I had to try really hard over an area of 5000 acres to get over 300 a year.
I had nothing fancy, a BRNO 270 and 3-9 leupold, a midland 308, and a BRNO fox 222 with tascos or Nikko sterlings on them. No dialing, no rangefinders, no thermals. 5 shot mags with one extra in chamber and the next 20 rnds layed out besides us ready to be single loaded.
As Husky said, get close, work out a strategy so guys are not shooting animals out from under each other and wasting time, and work them over till they are all down or remainder have reached cover.

Target the big groups and reduce them and split them up and then it gets easier in that country to get around and crush small groups of less than 10.

Then recently when I sold my farm to forestry, It broke my heart seeing the herd of fallow Id managed, exterminated, But it was interesting watching how much more efficient night hunting with thermal equipment was. It seemed to me the deer had no idea at night and most seems, if going off the bodies, not to really run like they do in daytime.

goals, consistency, and continuation are the keys.

Anecdotal I know but the main property I hunt on in North Canty is full of animals and the hunters there can't keep on top of them. It gets hunted most weekends by various hunters too. Each time we're there we see 30-50 deer right into the middle of the day and heaps of pigs. The land owner wants them hammered so we shoot any pigs we see and always take 2-3 deer (Can't bring myself to shoot to waste deer even though they need doing there)

The last time we were there a chopper had been over the property the week before and we still saw 30+ animals. Shot two fallow and a pig. The time before that we shot 3 reds and about 8 pigs.
Shit's fucked.

And so theres a theme emerging that guys can't bring themselves to shoot too waste. Which is I think the biggest thing holding back recreational hunters. It's admirable and not to be criticised. But.... At some point it will mean that even more have to be shot to waste or poisoned and left to rot, or CRSPER will become involved and we will loose our deer herds completely.

It's a stuffed up world. Up north I could have found homes for most of the venison off my old place, but wasn't allowed too, and yet in others, guys can't bring themselves to shoot enough.

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Originally Posted by whanahuia

And so theres a theme emerging that guys can't bring themselves to shoot too waste. Which is I think the biggest thing holding back recreational hunters. It's admirable and not to be criticised. But.... At some point it will mean that even more have to be shot to waste or poisoned and left to rot, or CRSPER will become involved and we will loose our deer herds completely.

It's a stuffed up world. Up north I could have found homes for most of the venison off my old place, but wasn't allowed too, and yet in others, guys can't bring themselves to shoot enough.

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Yeah 100% I agree. I have no issues with culls or shooting to waste it's just a "me" thing when I'm out there. I don't like blowing over 10 deer for the fun of it. Pigs, sure, fuck them but something about deer haha. I have no issues with shooting a ratty stag and leaving it there if it's shit condition but I won't go out of my way to do so. I also understand that it needs to be done so it's a bit of a catch 22 for me personally.

The bit we do wrong....and watching the main tv shows and utubers..they do it so makes it worse,is the shooting of stags for meat animal when there are also hinds available...yes for next two months that's problematic unless two of you so one can line up fawn( or shoot it first) but for rest of the year we should be targeting hinds to eat.... Personally I shoot first deer I see and that's hunt over as hunt public land and seldom see more than one or a pair.