Thread: Watercress hunting turned into a fallow stalk.

Originally Posted by kawhia

the new owner is my neighbour, they did not bomb up the deer they moved out once the logging started. the numbers are very high as the poaching is very well managed now.... its just a pity they don't put the same effort into keeping the numbers at a sustainable level... they move about once they run out of feed, a few of them get hit by cars.

Yes, i have heard stories about people hitting them on the roads around during dawn hours. I can understand how the logging had driven them to one end of the pine block, nice to hear the poaching is managed now. I guess the hear say of the bombing up was possibly just poachers or forestry workers?

What is a sustainable level for Fallow? They're a small animal which tend to graze farm land mostly, so they're a nuisance to farmers fences and feed. During the day time they tend to bed down in pockets of bush.
I guess if you reduce the size of the bush pocket they live in then the heard size must reduce to be sustainable?

Its one of those catch-22 scenarios, It'd be nice to leave the pine block as be and manage the heard privately through wild game food sales, or simple paid meat hunts. I'm sure any of us would love to have a property like that. But unfortunately not everyone has the same views as me and I could imagine selling fallow meat wouldn't pay the bills. But the land productivity after logging would be massive for the new owner, unfortunate for the herd though.

The local Fallow herd is one of the 25 original herds spread across NZ, covering Te Miro - Te Tapui - Karapiro - Maungakawa. You hear reports say the herd is struggling, etc. But, i think they only look at the doc blocks for their data and the little pockets of bush all around the region hold small groups of fallow i hope, positive thinking.