Issue 105 - February / March 2025 |
On Sale Monday 10th February

No doubt most are now back at the grindstone after a good break over Christmas and New Year

The South Island West Coast in particular had some unbelievable weather for those who managed to get away. We snuck in a wonderful 10 day alpine adventure in South Westland which you’ll see in the new season of the Show starting February 23rd.

As always there seems to be some important stuff going on while everyone’s on holiday. Submissions are due on the Arms Act Rewrite by the 28th of February, so you won’t have a lot of time to get on to it once you read this. This is just the first stage of this process, and doesn’t include the firearm registry review, but its still important as many hunters and shooters as possible go to the Justice Department website and fill in the submission form here.

It's not difficult at all, but will take a little time to go through.

The key points are that we need to make it easier for legitimate firearms users to legitimately use firearms, and we mustn’t make it cost prohibitive to the point where firearms license holders numbers drop, then increasing the cost on those remaining, creating a downward spiral where only the wealthy can own firearms - and those that can’t afford it become criminals. For more motivation to encourage you to get on and fill in the submission form, read the

NZDA/COLFO piece on page 80. There are two other helpful documents on the Justice Department website that the submission document refers to, to help inform your responses. Don’t think you have nothing to contribute, it’s all in plain language and you can simply tell them exactly what you think.

You’ll see a push for the Sika Foundation in the What’s New. These guys have been doing incredible work and are well through the process of establishing a Herd of Special Interest (HOSI) for Sika deer in the Central North Island. One simple way you can contribute financially is becoming a member - and that applies to the Wapiti Foundation as well, who are also working hard on a HOSI proposal but with extra complications due to our totally out of touch conservation legislation that ignores ecological reality – especially section

4 2 b of the National parks Act that says all introduced species shall as far as possible be eradicated. This is a major hurdle for Wapiti in Fiordland National Park, and is what has led to Forest and Bird’s pathetic threat of a judicial review. See Roy’s interview on page 18 to get a feeling for how frustrated he feels with all this pointless bureaucracy that is serving neither hunters nor conservation!

The Tahr Foundation is also going to be able to take members by the time you read this, and they too are working towards a HOSI for tahr. Theirs is going to be particularly challenging and difficult and will also need all the funding it can get. They are also running a draw for a trophy tahr hunt with past president Snow Hewetson for anyone who joins in the next six months.

One last bit of good news is James Meager from South Canterbury is the new Hunting and Fishing minister. We have spent quite a bit of time with James and we’re looking forward to working with him to continue to fulfill National’s pre-election promises regarding HOSI’s and conservation legislation. We also want to thank Todd McLay for getting the portfolio up and running, and know he will continue to be a strong supporter within cabinet in this space.

The roar is not too far away now, and let’s keep it safe out there so we all get to enjoy the fruits of all the hard work all of us advocating for sustainable game herds and conservation have been achieving lately!