Thread: Time to re-introduce a paying for deer/goat tail scheme?

Personally, I thought it then and I still think one of the worst decisions made by central government was to disband the Pest Destruction Boards. The three areas I lived in when they were in existence were virtually devoid of anything pest related. Made it tough for a youngster starting out in their hunting career but they certainly had it well under control and were basically down to a maintenance role with minimal staffing levels. I know it’s a case of hindsight but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out the consequences, as we now see, of not keeping on top of a problem when there is no guarantee of complete eradication. It was always going to come back and bite us in the gluteus maximus.

There is no argument against the cost of maintaining small experienced crews around the country, giving them the ability to organise and cooperate with other interested groups when needed to assist maintaining control, as opposed to the monumental waste of taxpayers resources currently going on now. I’ve seen, time and time again, regional councils carrying out poison control of rabbits on private properties and then fail on follow up. Every year throwing it around willy nilly and then failing to monitor outcomes with absolutely no accountability on either themselves or landowners, if they have obligations as well for follow up.

The responsibility of pest control needs to be removed from the departments of ideology and incompetence and returned to a practical, boots on the ground entity, coupled with adequate funding for research, and we’ll be back to seeing some real inroads into the problem. It’s far easier to monitor effectiveness and outcomes vs expenditure with a single entity than the current structures with a multitude of fingers, arms, and boots in the pie. The results will speak for themselves and to hold them accountable you have only one door to knock on.


And yes, there are issues accompanying it, but there must also be some financial incentives involved for private individuals, at least in the interim till control is established. The issues aren’t new, they’re well documented so I’m sure a viable solution can be found.