Unfinished business with a beast of a stag

There are no tigers in New Zealand, at least not in the wild. But there are sambar, a favourite food of tigers in India, where the large deer can keep a cat sated for days. Widespread throughout India, China and East Asia, sambar are the favoured prey of big cats — tiger, panther, clouded leopard and Asiatic lion — but are also taken by dholes (wild dogs), crocodiles and python. In New Zealand, their only predators are human beings, but that could be changing. Ironically, the deer might now be falling victim to another introduced species — the pine tree.

“They are a blot on the landscape,” Gerald muttered as he and I crested a ridge that overlooked an expanse of lowland hill country: meandering creeks threading from twisted gullies dotted with Kanuka forest and native bush, fringed with remnant swamps and surrounded by steep