By Corina Jordan, Chief Executive, New Zealand Game Animal Council

The Game Animal Council (GAC) recently attended the Sika Show in Hamilton – another fantastic event for hunters and outdoor enthusiasts. Congratulations to the organising committee for delivering such a successful show.

With around 200 exhibitors representing more than 250 brands and approximately 10,500 visitors, the event demonstrated the strength and enthusiasm of New Zealand’s hunting community.

Events like the Sika Show are a great opportunity to celebrate hunting, connect with others and recognise the important role hunting plays in our communities and across New Zealand.

Protecting our hunting culture

New Zealand is fortunate to have such a passionate hunting community. Protecting our hunting culture and ensuring future generations enjoy the same opportunities is something we should all be working towards.

Hunting is about much more than harvesting animals. It’s about putting food on the table, spending time with family and friends, connecting with the outdoors, passing on knowledge and traditions, and contributing to our communities.

How we talk about hunting matters when it comes to preserving these traditions and securing hunting for the future. Recent media coverage of deer and other game animals has included claims about exploding populations, agricultural damage and the need to treat game animals as pests.

As hunters, we have an important role to play in ensuring the bigger picture is understood. We need to promote game animals as valued resources, share the benefits of hunting, and explain the contribution hunters make to food gathering, conservation, regional communities and New Zealand’s outdoor heritage.

We must also support a shift in narrative from ‘pest’ to ‘valued introduced species’. Labelling a species as a pest can constrain the opportunities available for its management, framing it primarily as a problem to be controlled and often leaving the associated costs to the taxpayer. This approach also devalues New Zealand as an iconic international hunting destination.

In contrast, managing a species in recognition of its values, particularly its economic value, opens up opportunities for more creative, innovative and potentially self-sustaining approaches to management. It highlights the long-term benefits of hunting to New Zealand.

The more positively we frame hunting and hunter contributions to game animal management, the better positioned we will be to protect hunting opportunities for the future.

What we’re hearing from hunters

Whether through events, social media, email or direct conversations, hunter feedback helps shape the GAC’s work. It enables us to represent your views, provide submissions to government, engage with agencies, and provide advice to Ministers.

The three key themes we’re hearing from hunters are:

  • Access
  • Healthy herds and habitats
  • Partnerships.

Access remains the dominant issue raised by hunters. Loss of access to public land, difficulties securing permission to hunt on private land, locked gates, paper roads and landlocked Department of Conservation parcels are all significant challenges.

Without reliable access, hunters cannot fully contribute to game animal management, conservation or the gathering of food for their whānau. Access also underpins many other concerns raised by hunters, including the impacts of 1080 operations. For many, these operations can affect their ability to hunt safely, retrieve meat and access areas following a drop.

Improving and protecting access is fundamental to the future of hunting.

Secondly, hunters want healthy, balanced herds and habitats. They want to be involved in management decisions and see their role recognised and respected within the wider conservation landscape.

There is also interest in better coordination of hunting management measures, including wild animal recovery operations (WARO), and ensuring appropriate conditions and compliance measures support sound game animal management principles, such as the targeted management of female animals.

Thirdly, another consistent message is that many hunters feel undervalued or dismissed by parts of the conservation sector and want to be valued as a partner in management.

Hunters want greater recognition of their contribution to conservation, genuine collaboration, less stigma and exclusion, and the opportunity to be trusted partners in game animal management.

Many see the Game Animal Council, and particularly the development of Herds of Special Interest (HOSI), as an important way to achieve more positive and collaborative hunter-led management outcomes.

Hunter feedback survey

We continue to take hunter concerns and ideas directly to government and other organisations. To keep our fingers on the pulse, we’re currently running a hunter feedback survey, closing on 30 November. Share your views, experiences, concerns and suggested improvements for hunting and game animal management across New Zealand. Your voice matters, so please  complete the survey here.

Looking ahead, preparations will soon begin for the 2027 Great Southern Hunt and Fish Expo in Wānaka, another exciting opportunity to bring the hunting and outdoor community together.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to connect with us at the Sika Show and continues to share their views and experiences. Your feedback matters, and together we can strengthen hunting, improve game animal management and protect our hunting heritage for generations to come.

All the best,

Corina