Why not seize on economic opportunity of tahr cull?
Will the proposed tahr cull leave animals to rot as mountain maggot fodder? Jim Moffat asks if there is a more productive solution.
THE Department of Conservation (Doc) plan currently is to cull the tahr sometime in the New Year. If one assumes a meat weight of 30kg to 35kg at say $9.50 a kg, based on the recent venison schedule (Otago Daily Times, 17.11.18), each carcass would be worth about $285 to $332.
With this amount multiplied by, say, 9000 carcasses, allowing for those irretrievably lost down a mountain crevasse or two, there would be a gross amount to be gained of about
$2.5 million to $2.9 million, ignoring the hide value and byproduct value of liver, kidneys, brain etc.
A helicopter crash in October that killed two Doc personnel put the proposed cull back until next February. No new date has been set. This human tragedy to one side, there seems to be a good case for Andy Roberts, Doc’s operations director for tahr control, to put a commercial spin on the proposed cull and on those of the future.
Doc believes the total tahr population is greater than the estimated 35,000 head that are currently destroying vulnerable native mountain plants. The proposed cull will allow some recovery of these plants.
This will improve the tussock fodder for the remaining nannies. With heavier bodyweights there will be an increase in live births. It is all biological. The tahr numbers will bounce back, leaving Doc where it started.
New Zealand Deerstalkers Association president Bill O’Leary made an excellent point (ODT, 7.11.18) in saying members would never target a nanny with young, because it would be cruel to leave the kids to starve.
He also said it would not be practical for hunters to carry large numbers of carcasses down mountainsides as steep as a chook’s face.
Ngai Tahu share a similar view. It would not favour leaving carcasses on the maunga to rot. Prof Sir Alan Mark’s letter (ODT, 15.10.18) pointed out the latest 2017 paper on tahr effects showed about 30% of their diet is mostly the crown of snow tussock.Hard grazing would kill the tussock, reducing the available feed and thus causing tahr starvation.
According to Doc there are 28 landing sites in the cull area, which raises the question of helicopter carcass retrieval, as was done with wild deer last century. Surely, this is a chance for cashstrapped Doc to apply some business acumen to the tahr cull to generate a positive cash flow to be used in its conservation work.
A radical solution to deal with this mountain pest big time is to involve the military.
A short intense operation involving the army and its helicopters would sort the problem and allow carcass retrieval for processing and export. Awardwinning Southland Blue River Dairy is looking for goats to process.
Not a tahr is mentioned in the Otago Regional Council’s proposed 10year regional pest management plan and biosecurity strategy.
This is poised to cost ratepayers $1.8 million, a 100% increase on the previous strategy. Perhaps it could work into its strategy a tahr cost recovery. It seems a real scandal to let the lot go to waste.