By Corina Jordan, CE, NZ Game Animal Council
Hunting is an integral part of New Zealand’s identity, weaving together our cultural heritage and the stewardship of our natural resources. It provides a source of food for many communities, has a positive economic impact, supports physical and mental wellbeing, and encourages participation in community-led conservation.
More than 160,000 New Zealanders hunt each year, harvesting around 370,000 big game animals and controlling hundreds of thousands of goats and wallabies. Many also participate in conservation initiatives, hut and track maintenance, and teaching the next generation about hunting and the outdoors.
Recreational hunting generates around $450 million in economic activity each year and creates 2,600–3,000 jobs. Guided hunting adds a further $280 million in direct overseas revenue.
Reflecting on these numbers, it’s a no great leap to conclude that the hunting sector is best placed to manage game animals in New Zealand.
Hunter-led management
The hunting sector is broad. It includes recreational hunters, professional ground and aerial cullers, guides, commercial operators, clubs and foundations. Together, they make the biggest contribution to game animal management and pest control across public and private land.
These approaches should complement – not compete – with each other.
Recreational hunting can make an enormous contribution, supported by organised management hunts where more effort or targeted harvesting is needed. Commercial recovery can remove animals while utilising valuable wild protein and returning money to management efforts. The Fiordland Wapiti Foundation has shown how this can work in practice. Professional or official control is also part of the toolbox. The best approaches will tailor the tool to the local situation.
New Zealand already has two examples of successful hunter-led management – the Central North Island sika herd and the Fiordland wapiti herd. These are the only areas where hunter-led management is actively occurring and where results are being demonstrated.
For example, sika are being managed at around 5-6 sika per square kilometre in the area managed by the Sika Foundation. Outside that area, densities have been recorded at around 15-16 sika per square kilometre.
The hunting sector has the knowledge, skills and motivation. The key is coordination.
A values-based approach
The Game Animal Council (GAC) supports a values-based approach to game animal management. The principle is simple: decide what outcomes matter in a particular place and for a particular herd, then use the right mix of tools to achieve them. This should be done at the grassroots level working with communities.
For the Sika and Wapiti Herds of Special Interest (HOSI), game animals have significant hunting value. There, the objective is not to maximise deer numbers, but to provide quality hunting opportunities while managing animal numbers and impacts to protect conservation values and improve herd quality.
The GAC’s ambition is not fewer places to hunt, higher barriers to participation or paid access to public land. It is better management, improved hunting opportunities and more hunters contributing to the work required to look after our game animals and the places they live.
Achieving this requires active herd and habitat management, monitoring results and adapting when necessary. It also requires community, farmers, hunters, conservationists, iwi, government and commercial operators to work together.
The expertise already exists. The key is bringing it together around clear outcomes.
Coordination is critical
Under the Wild Animal Control Act, control of game animals on public conservation land is for the most part the responsibility of the Department of Conservation (DOC). Hunters are one of the tools DOC uses, and management has never been the responsibility of hunters themselves.
Yet the current approach is not delivering. For nearly 100 years, we have largely relied on the same fragmented approach and expected a different result.
Game animals do not respect fences or property boundaries. Without coordinated management across land tenures, populations will inevitably move between them.
Farmers, conservation managers and hunters can all benefit from healthy environments, well-managed animal populations and good hunting opportunities.
That is where the GAC can add value.
As the statutory body focused on game animals and hunting, we bring specialist knowledge of game animal management, hunting behaviour and the value New Zealanders place on these animals – while recognising that sustainable management must also address conservation, farming, biosecurity and community concerns.
Management needs to work across public and private land, alongside a wide range of stakeholders with different responsibilities and expertise.
The key is to coordinate those efforts around clear values and shared outcomes, integrating the hunting sector’s expertise.
Where we are headed
Empowering hunter-led management would enable more coordinated, long-term action towards healthy herds, healthy environments, quality hunting experiences and economic benefits.
For years, the GAC has advocated for a national game animal management strategy – one that recognises both the value game animals bring to New Zealand and the impacts they can have when numbers exceed what is acceptable.
A national strategy would bring hunters, landholders, communities, agencies and government together around a common framework.
But one size will not fit all.
Management needs to reflect the values and conditions of each place, with local solutions developed collaboratively.
The expertise is there. The hunters are there. The opportunity is there.
What we need now is a coordinated approach that puts that expertise to work.
The big question is who will lead this work?
All the best,
Corina