Thread: Game Animal Council (GAC) to be scrapped by Conservation Minister?

Originally Posted by Gibo

We (hunters) for the most part seem to be quite emotive and quite rough around the edges. To try and pull all of the hunters together as a united front always seems to end in internal rows. A lot of us don't/can't put our words into constructive sentences and resort to name calling and insults. This is one reason why we fail to be heard. Just my thoughts on it anyway.

Agreed it is difficult to pull hunters together. What is the answer ? well that can be found by asking which group is successful in pulling it's members together. That group is fish and Game. They have statutory protection of game fish. For those who doubt what I am saying, please Google search the Conservation Act and read under 'fish and Game Councils' it might surprise you just how much authority they have and how little is granted to game animals! Now moving this to a conclusion we can ask they question ' Why do introduced fish have this protection and not game animals' ? put simply because fishers buy a licence and that is where our future must also be.

Originally Posted by Moa Hunter

Agreed it is difficult to pull hunters together. What is the answer ? well that can be found by asking which group is successful in pulling it's members together. That group is fish and Game. They have statutory protection of game fish. For those who doubt what I am saying, please Google search the Conservation Act and read under 'fish and Game Councils' it might surprise you just how much authority they have and how little is granted to game animals! Now moving this to a conclusion we can ask they question ' Why do introduced fish have this protection and not game animals' ? put simply because fishers buy a licence and that is where our future must also be.

The "like" I stuck on your post was because I agree with your logic, not because I like the concept, we as hunters are probably never going to have an effective lobby group, but if hunters had a fee generating "hunting licence" then we would have value and thereby some measure of protection (maybe.....)

To all in general: find out who your local mp is, make it your mission to get in front of it and make sure it understands you will vote in whatever direction that keeps the stupid greenies from strangling us with their idiotic ideology, reminding it that you will do your dammdist to influence every member of your family, friends, work mates, and that are connected to a whole bunch of other people ( like on this forum for example ) that will do the same.

Roughly I worked out that I could get about 50 people to vote in one direction to obstruct the stupid green mob, imagine what a few thousand hunters could achieve with the right mindset.

Originally Posted by Moa Hunter

Agreed it is difficult to pull hunters together. What is the answer ? well that can be found by asking which group is successful in pulling it's members together. That group is fish and Game. They have statutory protection of game fish. For those who doubt what I am saying, please Google search the Conservation Act and read under 'fish and Game Councils' it might surprise you just how much authority they have and how little is granted to game animals! Now moving this to a conclusion we can ask they question ' Why do introduced fish have this protection and not game animals' ? put simply because fishers buy a licence and that is where our future must also be.

The trouble with that is all our game animals were provided and acclimatized with the goal/Intention that hunting should not be only the domain of the wealthy anybody should be able to hunt, and also as a protection for some species that were in a threatened population in their home ranges.

Returning the land to pre European settlement as @Pengy suggested is flawed as the first settlers the Moriori and second settlers the Moari had already hugely modified the land with fires and hunted/destroyed habitat of many species into extinction and pushed many others to the very brink....this was all well before the arrival of the evil white man and introduction of deer/pigs/thar/cham/goats/sheep/stoats/ferrit/possum/rabbit/hare and all those other things that provided a means to stop eating each other to survive.

Originally Posted by veitnamcam

The trouble with that is all our game animals were provided and acclimatized with the goal/Intention that hunting should not be only the domain of the wealthy anybody should be able to hunt, and also as a protection for some species that were in a threatened population in their home ranges.

Returning the land to pre European settlement as @Pengy suggested is flawed as the first settlers the Moriori and second settlers the Moari had already hugely modified the land with fires and hunted/destroyed habitat of many species into extinction and pushed many others to the very brink....this was all well before the arrival of the evil white man and introduction of deer/pigs/thar/cham/goats/sheep/stoats/ferrit/possum/rabbit/hare and all those other things that provided a means to stop eating each other to survive.

Were our game animals introduced with the intention … that anyone should be able to hunt. No they weren't. That might be a nice 'feel good' thought however critically examining the evidence of history will show a different story. In fact licences were expensive and only the Gentry hunted in the prized areas. If the intention had been to allow the common man to hunt with the same opportunity then the licences would have been balloted and at a low cost. Tourist hunting by the English Gentry was very popular here and many of the top trophies shot were taken by Lords and Majors. In large part because of the Wars 1 & 2 Game animal populations got out of control and protection was lifted and licencing taken away from acclimatization societies. But now that the animals are under control there is no reason that they should not be protected and hunting licenced.
We have free hunting for the common person now on public land but that hunting is under the perpetual threat of poisoning, WARO and the likes, so it is perhaps not as much 'our right' as we might think it is. The truth is we are tolerated and treated as a fringe group
On the one hand I hate the idea of paying for a licence but on the other I know that there is only one way to unite and give a voice to big game hunters.

Originally Posted by Moa Hunter

Were our game animals introduced with the intention … that anyone should be able to hunt. No they weren't. That might be a nice 'feel good' thought however critically examining the evidence of history will show a different story. In fact licences were expensive and only the Gentry hunted in the prized areas. If the intention had been to allow the common man to hunt with the same opportunity then the licences would have been balloted and at a low cost. Tourist hunting by the English Gentry was very popular here and many of the top trophies shot were taken by Lords and Majors. In large part because of the Wars 1 & 2 Game animal populations got out of control and protection was lifted and licencing taken away from acclimatization societies. But now that the animals are under control there is no reason that they should not be protected and hunting licenced.
We have free hunting for the common person now on public land but that hunting is under the perpetual threat of poisoning, WARO and the likes, so it is perhaps not as much 'our right' as we might think it is. The truth is we are tolerated and treated as a fringe group
On the one hand I hate the idea of paying for a licence but on the other I know that there is only one way to unite and give a voice to big game hunters.

I disagree. Thats ok we can disagree.
Most "real" hunters I know are older than me, I know in that group not one of them would pay a license fee and they would hunt without said license to make a point.
I think the firearms owning/hunting population is generally older but have no stats on hand to back that up, feel free to backhand me with stats to the contrary.
I personally would not be happy with paying a hunting license fee and would resist it by any means I could but I value my FAL perhaps more than my older hunting mates so if forced to then I would comply up untill the point I could not afford it then I would become a criminal.