“They eat vegetation, multiply and pose a threat to habitat of native birds. Deer have done and still do huge damage because their numbers in so many parts of the country are just going through the roof.
“To get to [being] a big, beautiful animal ... they eat a lot of stuff ... they eat the best things first ... they’re a bit like us; they have food preferences.
“They’ll eat what we call the palatable species. They’ll eat them out first. And that includes a lot of important plants like broadleaf, fivefinger, māhoe, hīnau, chicken fern, karamū ... native fuchsia, the tree fuchsia called kōtukutuku and also flax/harakeke.
“And when the deer have increased in their numbers like they have, what you’re left with is a very impoverished ecosystem with all of the plants that they don’t like to eat like bush rice grass, kānuka, horopito ... you lose so many of the native plants that provide nectar and berries and seeds for native birds and insects.
“While there is not a proposal here anywhere in Tairāwhiti for a herd of special interest, there is this one, the sika deer in the Kaweka, which is not far from us.
“A lot of Gisborne people would know and have walked and hunted in the Kaweka Ranges.”
Department of Conservation’s wild animals manager Mike Perry said a HOSI “can only be designated on a certain part of public conservation land”.
“Once a designated game animal leaves a HOSI area, it would no longer be considered a game animal and would be managed as a wild animal in accordance with the Wild Animal Control Act 1977.
“The designation of a HOSI on public conservation land will not affect the ability of neighbouring landowners or managers to control wild animals on their own land.
“For any game animal herd – deer, tahr, chamois or pig – in a given area to be designated as a HOSI, the Minister for Hunting must consider whether the animals are of special interest to hunters and can be managed for hunting purposes while ensuring conservation values continue to be protected.”
Perry said the minister would need to consider the views of Treaty partners and statutory stakeholders to decide if animals were of special interest to hunters.
“This limits the scope of any HOSI designations that are likely to be proposed or considered.”
Public submissions on the two draft herd management plans closed on December 8. Submissions were being analysed and a summary of them would be posted on the DoC website, Perry said.
The minister would consider feedback before making any decisions.
Vincent said Forest & Bird remained concerned about the impact deer and other pest species had on the land, referring to damage done in the Raukūmara.
“When you get a heavy rain event like we’ve had with ex-Cyclone Hale and Cyclone Gabrielle, the forest does not ... act as a sponge anymore,” Vincent said.
“The rain goes often easily through the canopy, hits the ground and in the Raukūmara there have been so many more slips and landslides under native vegetation, native trees, which you probably wouldn’t expect in the normal scheme of things, because there is no more moss and leaf litter and understory, shrub layer and ferns, to stop a lot of this erosion.”
He made special mention of the Raukūmara Pae Maunga protection and restoration programme, including extensive pest reduction and deer management, “which Forest & Bird strongly supports because the Raukūmara was falling apart”.
Vincent said recreational hunting would never control deer.
“It only takes a few deer, in combination with pigs and possums, of course, and goats perhaps... to stop the forest regenerating properly.
“Recreational hunting never gets deer down to a level where ecological recovery can happen.”
