Thread: Discussion on NZ Hunting moving forward - NZGuns

Originally Posted by Ben Waimata

Good article, I like the way you think.

To my mind there is a major contradiction between hunters and ecologists. The hunter has a vested interest in maintaining the animal populations, and is focused on sustainable meat collection. The ecologist/greenie is focused on sustainable biodiversity/forest health, and has a vested interest in removing feral 'pest' species. Finding common ground can be very challenging, but is essential to avoid the green rain future.

So the obvious solution would appear to be to maintain pest populations at a level suited to allow healthy forest biodiversity. .

well a few years back local council got all excited over small patch of ground,it has some rather rare types of grasses in it..being swamped by non native grasses ,so they ASKED me if I would put sheep in to graze it....block devided in half....the idea was to graze one half,not the other and work out what density of sheep per ha was GOOD for keeping reserves health and lower fire risk etc.... all went well and I built up sheep numbers as requested...then we got dry year and loads of rabbits in felled trees....the grass got eaten down in parts hard,not so much in others ...then the greenie element decided sheep eating too much other shrubbery so all had to go...NOW
the whole idea of finding balance abandoned at first hurdle..I was left with small mob of sheep and no big area to hold them.....still had grazing on couple of small reserves so didnt have to slaughter them all.....
it really opened my eyes to how short sighted the twig n twitter element can be...

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

well a few years back local council got all excited over small patch of ground,it has some rather rare types of grasses in it..being swamped by non native grasses ,so they ASKED me if I would put sheep in to graze it....block devided in half....the idea was to graze one half,not the other and work out what density of sheep per ha was GOOD for keeping reserves health and lower fire risk etc.... all went well and I built up sheep numbers as requested...then we got dry year and loads of rabbits in felled trees....the grass got eaten down in parts hard,not so much in others ...then the greenie element decided sheep eating too much other shrubbery so all had to go...NOW
the whole idea of finding balance abandoned at first hurdle..I was left with small mob of sheep and no big area to hold them.....still had grazing on couple of small reserves so didnt have to slaughter them all.....
it really opened my eyes to how short sighted the twig n twitter element can be...

The ecologists get just as upset about non-native plant invasion of native biodiversity as they do about feral animals. Perhaps what we need to do is find some definitive examples of feral deer preferentially grazing exotic 'weedy' species invading otherwise native ecological regions to prove how essential it is to maintain both feral animals as well as hunting control mechanisms to keep them at the correct level?