Thread: Current South Island WARO Activity

WARO seems to have been in a general lull for a number of years but there's likely to always be a bit of a demand for wild game so maybe it will be here for a while yet.

As for worrying about helicopters bombing up your local patch, I gave up being upset about that a long time ago. There are more animals out there now than there has ever been in my lifetime. I went for a 40-minute flight with my son the other day and saw 6 red stags, 4 fallow and over 100 tahr - in the middle of a hot summer day.

Originally Posted by BSA

the iwi land up the Arahura is being opened up for a WARO run this summer.

Interesting, that is being kept quiet it would seem..

IWI land - private land, doesn’t have to be publicly notified. No big deal.

Originally Posted by Hook_Grass

Seems there might be a bit more happening over the summer. Had a conversation with my old neighbor who is a pilot, himself and another crew from Blenheim shot the klKaikoura DOC country from the Hapuku,Mt Fyffe and Kowhai. They took 70odd deer and according to him the iwi land up the Arahura is being opened up for a WARO run this summer.

Plenty of deer around, from a selfish point of view it would be great if stags weren't targeted but that's just a pipedream.

Was in DOC Renwick office yesterday checking up on a few things. They were mildly surprised 70 deer got shot over that area. Their monitoring and local pilot suggests numbers aren’t particularly high for WARO, much easier private land around. Luck on the day I guess.

Originally Posted by woods223

Was in DOC Renwick office yesterday checking up on a few things. They were mildly surprised 70 deer got shot over that area. Their monitoring and local pilot suggests numbers aren’t particularly high for WARO, much easier private land around. Luck on the day I guess.

Definitely surprising, up until recently I would frequent one of those rivers and could normally find 20 or 30 deer but that is over a substantial area. The pilot I spoke to has been doing plenty of venison recovery but as you say @woods223 it is almost exclusively easy access private land with efficiency being the focus, generally shooting from a small machine and stockpiling groups of carcasses for a larger machine to whip through and pick up.

Originally Posted by woods223

Was in DOC Renwick office yesterday checking up on a few things. They were mildly surprised 70 deer got shot over that area. Their monitoring and local pilot suggests numbers aren’t particularly high for WARO, much easier private land around. Luck on the day I guess.

I'm surprised that's all they got, would have expected twice that.

Alpine as always been smashing them down here

Spoke to a mate of mine down Kaikoura way and he did a morning shotting out the heli 6 weeks ago on private land and shot 30.
Last roar I spent a bit over 2 weeks down around Kaikoura and I have never seen as many deer around, lot more fallow and in places I had never seen them before, I was surprised at the numbers.
Saw some big mature stags and I believe that with the lack of pressure from both hunters and WARO these animals are out in the open a lot more. I have spent a fair bit of time in some areas and not seen the number of good stags as last roar.
Took a couple of guys who had never shot a deer before and their first deer were an 11 and a 14 respectively, good heads. I spent years hunting before I got a stag as good as they got, shows how the times have changed.

A 500 was spotlighting all night in St James not long ago, observed by DOC staff apparently

Wonder if it was old matey from Hanmer

Originally Posted by Happy Jack

Wonder if it was old matey from Hanmer

Wouldn't have a clue, just repeating what I was told

Just got back from a mission up the kowhai, did a decently hairy climb up to the tops near the saddle encouraged by plenty of sign and rumour of some decent stags up there only to find 15 fresh gut-bags on a knoll. Always a bit of a gamble on DOC land I guess, would be useful if there was an online map showing where waro had been operating recently. Still a few hinds about but in hella steep inaccessible spots.

Originally Posted by Jake77

Just got back from a mission up the kowhai, did a decently hairy climb up to the tops near the saddle encouraged by plenty of sign and rumour of some decent stags up there only to find 15 fresh gut-bags on a knoll. Always a bit of a gamble on DOC land I guess, would be useful if there was an online map showing where waro had been operating recently. Still a few hinds about but in hella steep inaccessible spots.

There’s a new operator out of Springfield. They’re awfully close to 13 mile bush, Korowhai/Torlesse etc.

I have been told (2nd or 3rd hand information) that the lewis pass area around brass monkey Biv got a bit of WARO/heli shooting action over summer and around 140 deer removed. DOC land to the north of the Lake Sumner RHA. The information comes from a farming contractor who used to fly 500's so should be accurate, could be embellished a bit though.

Originally Posted by crocodiledavid

It will be interesting how long waro can continue. With the meat processing plants closing down in timaru due to low demand for venison and sheep. Surely the industry is on its last legs.

It didn't close due to lack of demand, it closed due to lack of supply. That's a land use change issue in the main

Red meat markets are still generally healthy in the long term. I'd guess the main challenge for WARO is margins, with the ever increasing cost of operating, both direct and indirect

@Jake77 there were about 40 deer shot out of the Kowhai Hutton shearwater area pre roar. But I should point out that area is off limits to the public so no real lose. They didn't shoot animals outside the area but observed a few pockets of animals in the surrounding area.

Good effort getting into that country, it can be fairly limiting in regards to how rugged it is. Especially the Hapuku side.