A Word from the Editor
Tahrmageddon! Most of you will be aware by now that the Minister of Conservation has Himalayan tahr well and truly in her sights. Make no mistake, if she has her way, it will be the end of tahr hunting as we know it! Read Joseph’s article on page 34 for more background around this issue.
After DoC met with the representatives from a new Tahr Liaison Group in August, they have now released their revised control plan to satisfy her objectives (since Joseph wrote his article). The main take home message expressed by the TLG was, while they acknowledged tahr numbers needed reducing to some extent, DoC must not cull tahr in the Westland and Mt Cook National Parks, attempting to eradicate them all together. Initially, on top of the 2,500 they have already culled in the last few months, they are going to shoot 3000 bulls and 7000 other tahr in all the country east of the main divide from Lake Pukaki northwards – all of the Jollie, Cass, Godley, Macaulay, Rangitata and Rakaia catchments before mid-November. This is all the most accessible, heavily hunted areas of the tahr range. If they take 3000 bulls out of this country and all bulls/tahr out of the Parks, that will be the end of the most popular trophy hunting areas. On top of this, they are expecting us to dig our own graves. The plan states they are expecting recreational hunters, guides, WARO and AATH to kill another 7500 tahr and provide proof of this on a monthly basis by the 1st of May 2019. If we collectively don’t make the required number of kills, DoC will cull the remainder to make up the total to 7500. The only areas they are not targeting immediately are the Landsborough and Adams wilderness areas north and south of the National Parks on the West Coast. They are expecting us hunters to do this for them – the most heavily bushclad and remotest areas in the tahr range – and by far the hardest areas to cull. They have taken the easiest East Coast country where hunters collectively could have a chance of controlling numbers, and left us the short straw. The cynic in me says they are absolutely setting us up to fail! I’m sure none of the groups DoC have given these ultimatums to will play DoC’s game – they would be absolutely stupid to under the current plan, and would be just putting nails in their own coffins.
