Originally Posted by
GregD
Ryan Songhurst, to say quote "There are plenty of animals to go round now more so than ever, if you can't find one and need to blame the machines for your shortcomings maybe take up golf?" is simply untrue. Up until Waro started up again last February with a vengeance, it had been starting to look very promising with a whole generation of stags being allowed to get some age on them. We are fast degenerating into how bad it was in the dark days of the 80s in a lot of areas.
There are plenty of areas that have had an absolute pasting in the last year, with a whole generation of chopper naive deer since Waro was last viable a number of years ago that have been sitting ducks. I have no issues with them shooting a good number of hinds and cull stags, but of course they have been targeting the big stags in some of our premier trophy bloodline areas, destroying them for another who knows how many years - all for a short term financial gain. I get sent so many pics on a weekely basis of what they are shooting, and it makes you sick. Just this week another massive 16 pointer out of the Canterbury Alps. The operators are largely only doing what the system allows them to do, so I'm not blaming them.
But this boom and bust scenario has to stop, which was sposed to be addressed in the promised Waro review which DoC have now reneged on.
The current system is simply not fair to the majority of public land users, nor sustainable for the Waro guys.