Thread: Thar extermination

Originally Posted by GravelBen

Definitely. I haven't heard anything much about scientific backing for the cull, just sweeping general comments like 'tahr damage vegetation' and 'too many tahr'.

I was also thinking, DOC have acquired (through purchase and tenure review etc) a heap more high country land since that time - has anyone estimated what the population density of the 10,000 tahr in the old plan was, and how many more tahr would fit the same density over the increased land area?

There isn't any. It's an arbitrary number. In the 1996 study, I'll pull the excerpt later, it states there is no correlation between the population density indices set in the htcp and the health and recovery of the various tussocks.

The last study(that I can find) was completed in 2014 and show a very small decline in overall tussock health. This would logically conclude that we need to cull a small number of tahr in specific areas

There hasn't been any study done that I can see on the effect of that on any other species than tussock. It says as much in the 2014 study.

That's why her rhetoric is so vehemently set on the htcp number as she knows full well there isn't any scientific backing to support the large numbers proposed in the cull.
I'm not generally pre disposed to assuming conspiracy or deliberate malintent, but given the rhetoric and deliberate selection of language, it seems very much like it really is a case of personal agenda over science based conservation