@rnzbot_political What a strange half-article to be headlining the
#RNZ website, since it summarises ACT’s new policy without giving any historical context or conservationists’ views.
I accept that game animals like deer are a valued resource in NZ and there need to be places to hunt them. Still, that cannot be the whole country. There are plenty of well documented and often massive impacts that deer, goats, tahr, and chamois have on the native species they eat, and many of these species are threatened and declining.
ACT is proposing that the government funds that are currently used by the Department of Conservation to manage games animals while protecting biodiversity all be given to the Game Animal Council for managing game animals nationally.
I’m reminded of comedian Guy Williams’ New Zealand Today piece about tahr management. Tahr numbers ballooned under hunter-led management from the target national herd size of 10,000 to more than three times that. The Department of Conservation (in the previous government) had to step in and started culling tahr to bring their numbers back down, yet there was then an outcry from hunters.
Most of NZ’s conservation land needs to be managed primarily for conservation. It makes sense to do that in collaboration with the Game Animal Council, as is done now. ACT’s policy to flip this around sounds like a recipe for extinctions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXLKsdkOFk4
#nzpol #conservation #deer #GameAnimals #hunting 
