Issue 104 - December 2024 / January 2025 |
On Sale Thursday 7th December

The Sika Show was another resounding success last month, with steady support over both days.

National and Act politicians were there in force, with the Prime Minister even signing up to the Sika Foundation! Hunting and Fishing Minister Todd McClay released his new access charter to ensure public land becomes more accessible, Minister Tama Potaka discussed potential amendments to conservation legislation, and Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee was talking about the changes in the Firearms Amendment Bill.

We have a new record Sika head with a Douglas Score of 243 3/8”! Congrats to Teariki Ama on a magnificent stag! It had 13 points but was based around a typical large 8 point Sika frame, with mostly matching tines. There were some stunning in heads in most categories, and it was really great to see Ben Searle’s fantastic 16 year old 14 inch bull take out the Duke of Bedford award. This is exactly the type of head we are really trying to reward with this trophy, a big old character bull that has been allowed to reach full maturity and then some. Brian Witton’s truly stunning tahr head scored more on the Douglas score, but was only 7 years old – this goes to show what bulls can do on good feed!

A new issue that is cropping up is Stewart Island Predator Free. ZIP has not announced what its operational plan is yet, but it will most likely start with their “1080 to Zero” aerial 1080 methodology they have been using in South Westland. This involves four prefeeds followed by two toxic aerial drops followed up by extensive monitoring and ground control, but the fear is they will want to use Brodificoum at some stage to try and get rid of rats, as no other poison will do the job. There are all three species of rats on the island and the polynesian rat Kiore in particular is difficult to kill with 1080 as it can detect it before it gets a lethal dose. Now Brodificoum is an extremely effective and persistent anticoagulant that bioaccummulates in the ecosystem and has been linked to large die offs and poisonings of non-target species – even marine life around islands where it has been used. It has been accepted since the 1990’s that it must not be used for broadscale poison operations, and is only registered for aerial application on unstocked offshore islands or behind predator proof fences. The very real fear is if they use Brodificoum it will almost certainly destroy the very important aquaculture and fishery industries – as well as building up potentially fatal residues in Island wildlife not directly targeted. It will almost certainly render any venison from Whitetail deer who actually survive the operation inedible for a very long time due to large anticoagulant buildups in their organs and muscles. So a firm no must be the answer to any thought of its use in this operation.

We really do feel we do not have the tools in the predator free toolbox yet to do a very wet and dense scrubland environment at the scale of Stewart Island. ZIP are proposing to do a trial area of about 10,000ha on a peninsular area that will be easier to defend against reinvasion. We certainly support a trial, but think 10,000ha is way larger than it needs to be and just means if it does prove to be a debacle, it will be an unnecessarily large one. Now funded by a significant chunk of DOC’s/tax payers money, surely it would be prudent to do a much smaller trial area and prove the concept before committing millions of dollars to the project? There are many much smaller peninsulas with narrower necks that would be far more suitable.

ZIP is proving to be a bit of a law until themselves and difficult to hold to account as they are a Limited Liability Company - not a government organisation. If they have a disaster, they walk away scot free, there will be no enforceable mitigation. There have already been concerns with the reporting from their current projects, and they have been particularly poor recently at taking the community along. We will need to keep a careful eye on this to ensure the valued native and introduced wildlife on the Island are not significantly affected. Watch this space…

We finish off this month with the news that the CEO of the GAC Tim Gale is leaving us. He has been offered a wonderful opportunity that is too good to turn down. We say goodbye to Tim with sadness as we have come so far together, and wish him and his family well. He has been instrumental in the massive gains the hunting sector has made in recent years, to the extent we have Herd of Special Interest (HOSI) proposals being written up right now. We are extremely fortunate to have Kaylyn Pinney, policy and planning manager for the GAC, who is actually doing the donkey work for the HOSI’s, head down/derriere up working with the Wapiti and Sika Foundations on these proposals as we speak. The GAC is continuing to develop increasing capability and we look forward to working with the new CEO to continue to drive the hunting sector in the right direction - and support the superb GAC staff of Kaylyn, Kim and Jenny in the work they are doing on all our behalves.

The summer is here, get out and make the most of the break, and go challenge yourself exploring some new country – we certainly will be!