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In my opinion aerial hunting is very bad for most people because helicopter hunting has ruined some of the best country for shooting deer by culling just about everything they see because they are thinking of the money. Changes in deer behaviour are already being reported, like when an aerial top dressing plane fly’s around the deer think that it’s the helicopter hunters and run and run until they find cover. The people that are consuming the venison wont no if that deer has been shot and chilled straight away of left for a week first. In the summer months the deer carcases are sprayed with aerosol fly spray which would contaminate the meat. Also the deer would have basically no chance of survival if the helicopter spotted one, they just chase it and shoot it, the deer has absolutely no chance of survival because there is no way of escaping. This is why so many people done it because it was easy money.

In the late 1980s it was calculated there were about two hundred and fifty thousand wild deer in New Zealand, the majority being red deer. With aerial hunting underway that number would have dropped dramatically. Up until 2004, between ten and thirty thousand deer were taking each year by the venison recovery industry. Aerial hunting has taken a big damper on deer hunting like when you went out for a hunt in the weekend you were almost guaranteed to get something, but now days you’ll have to go out about two or three times before you get a deer or even see one. This has all changed because of aerial hunting and its takings of thousands of deer. www.google.co.nz/aerialhuntinginnewzealand

Up until 2004 wild deer numbers were badly affected by helicopter hunters but that shooting by helicopter is now on hold. Wild deer numbers continue to be impacted by the operations of the Animal Health Board (AHB). The AHB’s mission is to get rid of TB from New Zealand. Its main target the possum is TB positive. A key tool used for possum eradication is aerial 1080 poisoning. The 1080 poison operations are concentrated in strips of forest beside the farm lands. Research has shown that 5-54% of red deer are killed following aerial 1080 poison drops. (There have been up to 90% deer kills but these are for different deer species like fallow). Recovery of deer populations can be expected in three to five years after a 50% kill. In my opinion aerial dropping should be band because they cannot control were it goes, unlike trapping it a lot more safer for the deer and other native animals, it’s just a bit more work involved.

So today we have a situation which, recreational hunters have by default, been left the task of controlling or managing the bulk of New Zealand’s wild deer herds.  The fact that DOC does not think that recreational hunters can control deer numbers.  There are no official regulations ordering hunters or directions given to hunters about where to shoot or what to shoot.  Recreational hunters take the majority of their animals under the rules of the good old kiwi hunting tradition.  This amounts to a random removal of animals throughout New Zealand. http://www.nzhuntinginfo.com/ . In my opinion this is what should happen, no aerial hunting just recreational hunting.

Overall, aerial hunting is bad for New Zealand’s deer population and also dropping 1080 out of a helicopter because there is no target species it’s what ever touches it, it dies.  If we don’t act there will be no deer for those quick weekend hunts and to secure the future of deer hunting in New Zealand. http://www.nzhuntinginfo.com/

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