Sambar deer dilemma

A shaggy Asian deer species is on the one hand a pest to foresters and on the other a prize hunters will pay thousands for the opportunity of shooting.
The Conservation Department is consulting the public about how to manage sambar deer. A consultation document is available from sambar@doc.govt.nz and submissions close on October 7.
Sambar can only be hunted in the Wanganui/Rangitikei/Manawatu/Horowhenua region under strict conditions.
Hunters must have a licence and can only shoot during the daylight hours of six weekends of the year.
There is a ballot for access to some forest areas, and about one person in 10 is successful.
"A lot of hunters are frustrated because they can't get a ballot and farmers are fussy about who they let on to their properties," hunter Andy Jarden said.
"Forestry owners tend to give preferential booking to their workers. And for farmers, the hunting season coincides with lambing."
People lucky enough to hunt are only allowed to shoot one deer each season.
Hunters estimate they have spent an average of $59,000 in pursuing sambar over the last eight years, but the figure is probably at least twice that. Safari companies advertise for overseas clients on the internet.
"Hunters come from all over the country and all over the world," Mr Jarden said.
Meanwhile, DoC's document says, foresters are reporting serious damage to pine plantations. At Santoft, the coastal forest between the Turakina and Rangitikei rivers, deer damage could be costing $3.8 million a year. Waitarere Forest is also suffering.
Unlike other deer, sambar find Pinus radiata tasty. "They pull off strips of bark. Sambar just eat the bark like licorice." They also browse the tops of young trees, which ruins their form. The deer can't simply be culled if they are a nuisance - getting permission to kill sambar out of season is a lengthy and expensive process.
Mr Jarden believed most hunters and foresters would like the restrictions on sambar hunting removed altogether, or at least eased. The body in charge of controlling the hunt, the Sambar Deer Management Foundation, has asked for more flexibility.
DoC technical support manager Bill Fleury said the department had no views, and sambar damage to conservation values was negligible.
DoC's role was to collect information from hunters and landowners and relay it to the Minister of Conservation. The minister would develop a position and be required to consult landowners before any decision was made.
The total number of sambar in the region was unknown, Mr Fleury said.
Reported kill rates have remained relatively steady since 1988. But Mr Jarden said numbers were increasing and some hunters were not reporting their kills.
The region's population is the result of the release of a single pair of sambar in 1875.
They bred and spread out, and sambar from the Foxton area were later taken to Rotorua and grew a new population. Sambar are a forest deer from southeast Asia.
There are 16 subspecies whose range spreads from India as far as southern China and the Philippines. The deer introduced to the Wanganui region were from Sri Lanka and are one of the largest of the subspecies.
They can weigh as much as 300kg and have an antler spread of 127cm.