Look after your mates this roar

By Tim Gale, General Manager, NZ Game Animal Council

Like most hunters in New Zealand, I am busy preparing and making plans for the upcoming roar. Only a few weeks away now, the roar is the focal point of my hunting calendar and the time of year that I look forward to more than any other.

However, while the roar offers plenty of excitement and the opportunity to bag a big stag, it is also a time where the risk of hunting accidents is at its highest.

For a lot of people, the roar may be the only time that they get out which leads to having a  higher number of inexperienced or occasional hunters in the hills, which makes taking the necessary safety precautions all the more important. This year, the Game Animal Council is running a safety campaign called “Look After Your Mates this Roar,” which focuses on making sure that hunters consider the health and safety of others when making their hunting decisions.

Firstly, it is critical to make sure your hunting party makes solid preparations before you head away. This means planning around weather forecasts and ensuring all members of the party have the right clothing, food and equipment to deal with changeable conditions. It also means taking into account the experience, fitness and bushcraft skills of party members when planning the objectives of the trip. A critical part of your preparations is making sure your party leaves its trip intentions with friends or family and that you have arranged to take at least one form of emergency communication device such as a distress beacon, satellite phone or inReach. 

Looking after your mates also means making good decisions while out on the hill. Communicate and discuss plans for the days hunting so all party members know what to expect. This will not only make the hunt safer but also lessen the chances of party members getting in each other’s way and ruining the hunt. If plans change due to evolving conditions or a lack of animals, make sure everyone is kept informed. Finally, make sure that all party members are comfortable with the decisions being made, are included in the decision-making process and are able to safely return to camp if they need to.

Firearm safety also needs to be emphasised. Even if you are hunting alone, it is likely that other hunters will be around so wear blaze if bush hunting, identify your target beyond all doubt and treat every firearm as loaded. If you are sharing a firearm between two of you, make sure the person carrying the firearm maintains responsibility for checking it is in the correct state of load and pointed in a safe direction at all times. 

Finally, I’d strongly encourage hunters to be thoughtful about the age of the stags they shoot during this year’s roar. We really want younger stags to have the chance to reach their full potential before they are harvested. This requires an unselfish attitude on behalf of us hunters and knowing the key identifiers to look for in a mature stag – a filled-out body and face, low head position and pedicles will be lower with the coronets completely buried in the skull hair. It is important not to get too fixated on the number of antler points as a young immature stag can still carry a pretty impressive head.

Big mature trophy stags don’t just magically appear; they are the product of a healthy habitat, good breeding and hunters having the discipline and knowledge to leave them and keep looking for that big old grizzly mature stag. If we want to enjoy the experience of chasing more trophy-class animals in the future, we need to be disciplined enough to do the right thing now. This combined with actively harvesting more breeding-age hinds at other times of the year will lead to lower density, higher quality herds in the future.

The NZ Game Animal Council is a statutory organisation responsible for the sustainable management of game animals and hunting for recreation, commerce and conservation. 

You can contact the GAC through its website, nzgac.org.nz, or on Facebook.

‍