Calls for hunter input

Greater hunter input into conservation policy and planning would help the sometimes strained relationship between conservation and hunting, according to a ministerial panel.

In managing numbers of deer, chamois, thar and wild pigs the panel recommended to Minister of Conservation Chris Carter that hunting interests be given greater consideration in managing game to protect native biodiversity.

The submissions showed an entrenched conflict between game animals being seen as a resource and as entirely harmful.

From nearly 4000 submissions 54 per cent saw the game animals as a resource and 25 per cent as a primarily a resource but also a pest.

The panel recommended forming a wild animal control advisory committee to increase the amount and effectiveness of hunting.

This committee could consider the best hunting-conservation trade off with some recognition of the animals as a resource.

However this could not go as far as seeing them as a natural resource and the interests of conservation and biodiversity came first.

This was seen as a way to better accommodate hunter interests while working within the existing framework.

Establishing a big game hunting council may encourage farming and hunting and establish standards for hunting.

The Department of Conservation could not give hunters interest's priority, and make designated hunting blocks, on conservation land.

It found that while game could harm biodiversity in most places large game were below the carrying capacity of the habitat.

The Department of Conservation submitted that game management purely for the benefit of hunters was not appropriate on public land.

It would pick away at the integrated conservation management model.

However, it could identify priority areas for hunting and conservation. The department could improve hunting opportunities where it didn't hurt biodiversity. And other steps such as simplifying permits, leaving bull thar during culls and using deer repellent in 1080 top lessen by-kill could help hunters.

- © Fairfax NZ News