Hunters have become such powerful lobbyists, they appear to have the Department of Conservation working to serve their interests over the environment, Marie Russell argues
OPINION: The hunting lobby seems to be winning against the agencies set up to protect native biodiversity and forest carbon sinks.
Hunters want to maintain numbers of feral deer, goats and pigs for their sport. Yet around the country in the bush and wild places, these introduced, browsing pest animals are stripping out the forest understory and killing the saplings.
Without new plant growth coming through, forests and alpine lands are doomed.
In response, the Department of Conservation (DoC) appears to be bending over backwards to manage pest animals as a resource for hunters. This has reached the point where, in some areas, DoC seems to be farming the animals on behalf of the hunting fraternity.
Take Himalayan tahr in the South Island. Over recent decades, hunters have not kept tahr numbers low enough to prevent damage to fragile alpine environments. Yet hunters objected to DoC’s proposed tahr cull in 2020, with a media campaign and legal action.
By August 2020, DoC was reassuring hunters: “Make no mistake, we’re interested in tahr control, not eradication.” Outside national parks, DoC refrains from culling mature bull tahr—the heads are sought-after by trophy-hunters—and culls only females and juveniles in the public conservation estate. DoC leaves some tahr “in accessible and popular hunting areas”, for recreational hunters.
A 2020 short video from the New Zealand Tahr Foundation contains the surprising statement that tahr are “tangata whenua, they belong here”. (They were introduced in New Zealand in 1904).
Hunting lobby tactics
How has the hunting lobby proved to be successful? First up, the hunting lobby achieved legislation helpful for its sport. The Game Animal Council Act 2013 set up a council (GAC) to support hunters and hunting, and re-classified some introduced pests—chamois, deer, tahr, and pigs—as “game animals”. Central and local government funded GAC to the tune of about half a million dollars in 2020.
Second, the hunting lobby and its close kin, the firearms lobby, have support in Parliament. ACT opposes the 2020 firearms law reforms and actively supports and advocates for hunting interests. MP Nicole McKee, number three on ACT’s list, is a keen hunter and shooter. The Game Animal Council has organised Parliamentary Hunts (in 2015, 2016, 2018 and 2019 – but not election years) taking some MPs, their friends and family members out on a hunt. These have been attended by MPs from several parties.
Third, hunting groups have a track record of highly effective lobbying, including - for example – o.ver the use of 1080. Although 1080 is an effective form of pest control, pressure from the hunting fraternity (92 percent of licensed firearms owners are male) has led to DoC adding deer-repellent to 1080 baits, and paying for it. To save deer from 1080, DoC has spent well over $1 million of taxpayer funds since 2014.
Finally, some individual hunters appear willing to indulge in dangerous, illegal acts against DoC staff and the environment. During 2020’s tahr-cull fracas, 18 threats were referred to police: including death threats to the Minister of Conservation and threats to shoot down helicopters. Police investigated, issued warnings; one person’s firearms licence was revoked. DoC had to set up protections for staff and contractors.
Why our forests matter
Two reports in June 2021 discussed forests and climate change mitigation. The Climate Change Commission saw native forests as a significant long-term carbon sink: “…the only option available now for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere at scale.” It advised government that while it “needs to start now” at planting more native forests, “forests cannot be established with the current prevalence of pests”. Forest & Bird wrote that the control of mammalian herbivores is likely “one of the most significant and cost-effective options for protecting and enhancing the country’s massive stores of natural carbon.”
Of course, healthy forests have other benefits: biodiversity’s a big one, supporting threatened species. Sadly, both reports, along with DoC and many politicians, talk only of pest “management” and “control” - not eradication.
What do hunters want?
The mental health benefits and comradeship of being in the great outdoors with friends and family are among the things hunters like (see the NZ Tahr Foundation video above). Of course, unarmed trampers can have the same experiences. Hunters make much of hunted meat as free, lean, organic and healthy. While some low-income rural and Māori communities hunt for food, better-off hunters eat hunted meat as an option and a preference, not a necessity.
There’s also trophy-hunting, a key force behind hunting adventures for overseas tourists. Before Covid-19, the industry included safari tours, hunting guides, farmers providing hunting on their land, firearms and ammunition dealers, lodges, helicopter companies, taxidermists, and specialised equipment suppliers—all groups with a financial interest in keeping hunting going at recent levels.
To an outsider, it seems peculiar to call trophy-hunting a sport. While some safaris or guided hunts appear to promise trophies, game estates provide “captive hunts” (where desirable wild animals are contained in a defined area) so shooters are guaranteed the kill they want.
Relying on overseas tourists is unsustainable during a pandemic. Now is our chance to end hunting tourism and let professional cullers and poison drops get on with pest eradication, so our native forests and wild lands can do their work for biodiversity and climate action.
(The large pest animals hunted in NZ are described here.)
