Thread: Helicopter dropping dead deer into forest.

Was watching with a pair of 8x32s, probably about 1km away.



13:00 got back from checking the fencelines for lunch and spotted the chopper veering around our place.

It then lands and a guy wearing blaze orange hops out and is bending over picking up or putting down (?) stuff on the ground.

Somebody (There was a motor bike and some others appeared) then hooks up a deer (possibly a calf but the legs were very thin, dark brown shoulders, lighter flanks and grey belly) on a long cable by the head and it flies over to the forest with the deer, decends and comes out with no swinger.

Does another pick up but it looked like the next one fell off too soon. Chopper picks it up and drops off in what appeared to be a slightly different location.

Then another deer is done.

Guess it's possible there was a vehicle picking them up in the forest but you would wonder why they wouldn't fly to a more open drop off zone. I've shot a few pigs around the place so would sure think twice about eating them.

I'll check with the neighbours next time I see them but was interested to know if poisoned animals around the country, that died outside of the forest, is normally disposed of by just dropping them back inside the zone.

Good observation.
As far as I am aware, the conditions of use for 1080 poison require all possible effort to be taken to remove and burn or bury animals poisoned by 1080. This will be specified by Medical Officer of health as well as the Regional Council that issued the permit. This is also a condition laid down by the manufacturer of the poison, ACP LTD, which is a government owned SOE, which remanufactures and distributes the poison for profit. If you want a hand to follow this up along official channels, please feel free to PM me.

Cheers guys, thought it was pretty strange and dangerous considering how many pig shooters are around these parts.

Wished I'd had of had a camera with decent zoom so have no hard proof, maybe there was a truck in the trees but seams a wierd place to drop them off.