Spring meat hunting helps deer management

By Tim Gale, General Manager, NZ Game Animal Council

Covid-19 alert levels permitting, Spring is a great time to head into the hills and harvest some free-range meat for the summer BBQ. With hinds not dropping their fawns until late November/early December hunters can ‘kill two birds with one stone’ over the next few weeks as harvesting breeding-age females will not only supply quality protein for your family but also make a big contribution to deer management.

In places where deer numbers are getting up and impacting herd quality and native vegetation, hunters have an important role to help bring those populations down. Achieving lower density, healthier deer herds mean working towards better male-female balance where the number of breeding animals (females) are reduced and younger males allowed to fully mature. This has the added benefit of providing for better hunting during the roar as more males compete for a fewer number of females. Alternatively, if hunters shoot spikers and young stags now, they shouldn’t be surprised if there aren’t too many mature stags around during the roar.

You can learn more about game animal management principles and why they are important at https://nzgameanimalcouncil.org.nz/game-animal-management/.

Moving on to the issue of firearms licences and renewals. As a lot of hunters know the Police have a serious backlog in applications and renewals, which has been exacerbated by the current lockdown and Covid-19 alert level restrictions. It was pleasing therefore to see the Government recently acknowledge this by granting extensions to licence holders with expiring firearms or dealer licences, if renewal dates land in the following situations:

• Those who had applied for a licence renewal between 25 September 2020 and on or before 16 August 2021, and the application was not resolved before this date. These licence holders can legally continue to possess, procure, or use a firearm or ammunition for up to 12 months after the original expiry date, or until the licence application is determined by Police.

• Those who have a licence renewal date between 17 August 2021 and 30th November 2021. These licence holders are given an additional four months from the date of licence expiry to apply for a licence renewal. Then they will be granted an extension of 12 months, from the original expiry date of their licence, or until the licence application is determined by Police.

While these extensions will not be accompanied with an updated firearms licence card, Police are launching an online licence checker that will allow licence holders to present their expired licence card to a dealer, who can check the Police firearms licence database to confirm an extension has been issued.

Finally, like so many of you I was disappointed to learn of the postponement of the 2021 Sika Show. However, under the circumstances with changing alert levels for the Waikato region, the organisers really didn’t have much choice and made the right call. The Game Animal Council looks forward to being involved in what should be an even better event on 26-27 February 2022!

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

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