Thread: Deer Population Growth

What historically was done to control deer numbers?
Government and private funded culling obviously, both by heli and nzfs etc.
Wasn't a deer carcass once worth money? What measures did MPI take that removed the monetary value of deer to the average hunter? Genuine question.

Originally Posted by Brad S

What historically was done to control deer numbers?
Government and private funded culling obviously, both by heli and nzfs etc.
Wasn't a deer carcass once worth money? What measures did MPI take that removed the monetary value of deer to the average hunter? Genuine question.

From 1931 til the 1970s, first Department of Internal Affairs then the Forest Service (after 1955) killed deer under government control programmes largely motivated by competition with farm livestock and general moral panic. There was poor setting of objectives and understanding of delivering effective work, and at a national scale this work (plus background rec hunter effort) likely did not stop the increase in deer numbers, however there is some evidence that localised well-planned operations achieved locally effective results. Govt hunters from 1936 - 1960 shot on average about 32,000 deer per year - up to 60,000. Govt effort hunting deer stopped in the 1970s once commercial hunting really took off.

There was some targeted aerial 1080 use in the late 1950s, targeting deer. There is poor evidence available of whether this was effective and effects on deer populations. Other than that there were a few odds and sods of trials of gel bait that have had mixed results. It's not likely to be a useful tool for a number of reasons.

In the early 1960s, commercial hunting (meat and subsequently live capture) became a strong additive pressure on top of NZFS and rec hunter kills. The combined effect of these added up to significantly reduce the population through the 1970s to a low point in the early 1980s. Commercial hunting at a national scale has been around an average of 16,000 deer since 1983 however. There are some local effects still but at a national level it is not a large or effective contribution anymore.

The incentives that drove the massive additional effort of commercial hunting at the time were peculiar and will not re-occur. Fixed exchange rate, tax write-off incentives, stocking for new deer farms, etc. These disappeared with Rogernomics in the 1980s as command economic systems do not work. They did create a huge market bubble for approximately 10 years - the price of wild venison in 1972 was approximately 7x what a WARO operator gets now, and running costs have also increased (fuel, parts, regulation) - inflation adjusted about double. So meat hunting from a helicopter was around 14x more profitable in 1972 than it is today. Live capture was also an incredibly lucrative business for a very short period - it was financially worth flying a helicopter for 10 hours to capture 1 hind. This translates perhaps to the levels of control effort (ie cost) that would be applied for eradicating the last deer from an Island - i.e. a very high level of effort. This level of incentive on top of the background effort by Govt/rec hunters contributed to driving populations to apparently extremely low levels mostly everywhere.

Increased food safety regulations have also put an end to any ground based commercial hunting.

Rec hunter harvest at a national level is poorly understood and there is very limited data. However estimates by Nugent 1988 are 54,667 deer and Kerr 2011 135,000 deer.

The available evidence suggests that all parts of the system are not keeping up with deer numbers increasing at a national scale, however there are significant local variances to this.

great awnser Gimp - there were also problems with toxins and selling wild shot venison and 1080 was not always the problem - talon ( brodifacoum) was a real nasty and available without any license despite it being extremely residual -operators needed a clean pesticide report from the operational area to process wildshot deer and it was at times a bloody nightmare - trying to get accurate information - I had a license to sell wildshot but trying to get that clear pesticide report from all neighbors - I gave it up - I always understand talon (brodificoum ) did turn up in wildshot venison (Taumaranui) but dont quote me