Heated debate over sorting goats from the sheep

The Department of Conservation is looking at whether some animals, including katipo, should be harvested and others such as feral chickens should be protected.

In the first shake-up of its protected species list in more than a decade, the department is deciding what should be protected and what should not under the 1953 Wildlife Act.

The list had developed haphazardly over the years, said DoC's Michael Gee, author of the wildlife protection review discussion paper.

But sorting it all out is causing heated debate. Farmers have long fought for the introduced canada goose to be declared a pest because of the damage it does to pasture but hunting lobby Fish and Game say it is one of the finest gamebirds in the world and should stay on the gamebird list.

Every year $115,000 was spent keeping numbers down so they would not be declared a pest, said Fish and Game director Bryce Johnson, including culls in which the birds were herded into pens and hit over the head or shot from helicopters during the moult when they could not fly.

"It's ecological nonsense to think you could eradicate them," he said.

Geraldine farmer Don Aubrey has up to 200 of the birds on his property.

"I don't believe geese should take preference over agriculture, which is what Fish and Game are demanding by making those statements," he said. If declared a pest, regional councils would get the job of eradicating them and farmers would have to pay.

Anomalies on the list include feral chickens having the same level of protection as the critically endangered kakapo. That is because species not listed under the Wildlife Act are automatically fully protected.

"It's a bit of an oddity," Mr Gee said. Another is that invertebrates (reptiles and insects) were traditionally not listed, but that could change.

The paper asks whether more protection should be given to katipo and weta while allowing some commercial harvesting at the same time.

Mr Gee said that was because weta were sometimes used in paperweights while DoC understood katipo were used in homeopathic remedies.

New Zealand Council of Homeopaths executive member Angela Hair said there was possibly a katipo tincture but it was diluted many thousands of times.

Species being considered for less protection include peacocks, peahens, an introduced skink and spur-winged plover, blamed for birdstrike.

Likely to get greater protection are pied shag, the world's largest fish, the whale shark, and the harrier hawk.

Submissions on the review will close on November 3.