Hunting in-sights

I’m not a fortune-teller, but my dear 85-year-old mum, whose father emigrated from Liverpool, insists she has Gypsy blood in her – so perhaps crystal ball gazing is in my genes? Some twenty years ago, I publicly predicted that a worldwide movement to ban hunting would eventually impact on New Zealand and our rural lifestyle. These claims were met with xenophobic derision – apparently Gypsies were feared in the Antipodes – and cries that it would never happen in ‘Godzone’. The Kiwis, like all good ostriches, then put their heads in the sand and continued hunting.

At the time, environmental groups in particular were gearing up for an insidious ‘long war’ and positioning people to take up future positions of influence in the Department of Conservation. They had also identified certain political parties as sympathetic to their views and engaged in a protracted strategy of infiltration, with