Thread: Deer and 1080 puzzle

I have very little hands on experience of this. The only area I have actively been involved in - and made observations and in with my own eyes - was a DOC block in the Ruapehu District in Nov 2017. Hunted it immediately before the drop, watched the drop in action from a nearby high point, continued hunting the affected block and the blocks (native, scrub and farm margins) immediately after.

I did not see a reduction in deer, pig or goat numbers. Pigs move, with the seasons, and at that time of the year they were mostly still in the bush on the berries during the day, and rooting the cleared scrubby farmland margins at night. Their numbers did not appear to drop. Deer (red and fallow) were as plentiful as ever. Goats were harder to judge, because we were hammering them at the time due to their affect on recent manuka plantings (honey).

So a very small sample, the only one I have personal experience of. 1080 made bugger all difference to our deer hunting.

I do not have a position on 1080, either way, I am totally conflicted and rather pathetically confused about it. So not trying to promote a view one way or the other.