Thread: the OFF TOPIC to Stags shot 21 (discussion of wild animal management)

Originally Posted by bigbear

A comment some where about "look at the wapiti" and how that's been managed. The deer side of things is been managed well with culling of hinds and poor genetic stags.
The people side of things is shit if you ask me. There needs tighter rules put in place around foreign hunters on public land ballot blocks in NZ and in fact all public land.
that's why we started game parks in NZ for was for foreign hunters??

Definitely won't find an argument from me. It's happens in the states with non resident hunters. Montana for example make non residents pay 10x the amount to hunt the same things. They often also have quotas ie only a maximum of 10% of the tags got to non residents. This helps as it reduces non resident interest because of price but not by 10x the amount so you actually end up with fewer hunters funding more of the model. The issue is they need it to be open to a larger pool to fund management otherwise we as kiwis will have to pay more to apply to cover costs. Also the people going to fiordland are not the same foreigners going to game parks (which where not made to keep foreigners of public land the resulted as a byproduct of it not being possible to guarantee trophies of historic quality guiding public land and the velvet farming markets. I understand the sentiment as I get a bit pissed every year when I miss the ballots but all these aussies get in.

The thing with Wapiti is they are a small isolated population and realistically it has to be limited as people can't be trusted to do the right thing as shown by general areas with minimal mature males and over population issues. If it was open and eveyone could go in it would quickly degrade to the same as everywhere else. I don't think it's a good model for everywhere but could it cover a few key herds definitely.