Thread: Ruahine fly-in: The good and the bad of helicopters for hunters

Originally Posted by outdoorlad

When Prouting got done down here for illegally heli hunting tahr outside of his concession area, Doc weren't keen to do anything about it until I believe pressure was brought to bear from Dunne, etc. he eventually ended up losing his heli hunting concession!

And then DOC kindly changed the system so the guide held the concession rather than the chopper outfit, and that very same chopper was straight back into it just a few weeks later..

There was another one earlier this year, with a different heli crew dropping their hunters in on a mob of bulls within 800m of an occupied hut, a mob that already had foot hunters within about 200m of them.. All caught on video, chopper crew claimed they didn't see them/hadn't looked. And despite the rules stating no hunting within 1km of a recreational facility, DOC still decided there was no breach and promptly pushed it into the 'ignore' basket.