Paradise
Love it or hate it, trophy hunting is a big tourist drawcard for New Zealand, writes Pat Deavoll.
Hunting has always proved controversial in New Zealand.
A recent spat over hunting tahr pitted the Department of Conservation (DOC) against recreational and commercial hunters, amid concern by trophy hunters that DOC’s cull would also kill its business.
Trophy hunting culture sometimes clashes with other back-country users. Hunters rile trampers, and trampers annoy hunters.
And trophy hunting, unsurprisingly, sometimes upsets animal rights activists.
We’ve all seen the images; Donald Trump’s sons posing with slain wildlife, or the infamous slaughter of Cecil the lion – felled by a Minnesota dentist.
But the small commercial hunting industry, which contributes an estimated $50 million a year into the New Zealand economy, is determined to put its best foot forward. Its aim is to show that through dogged professionalism it deserves to be recognised as a valid industry.
We are not hunting lions here of course; it’s mostly stags, tahr, fallow chamois and deer.
Hunting guide Gerald Telford is based at Hawea Flat, a few kilometres from Wanaka.
He has a lease on a high country station where he operates his commercial hunting business. It’s a 10-year lease; it has to be because clients are booked up two-to-three years in advance.
‘‘I would hazard a guess that there is barely a high country station in the Upper Clutha Basin that doesn’t have some sort of hunting operation going on,’’ Telford says.
‘‘We are a serious cash-flow for these farmers. And I make a good living.
‘‘Most commercial hunters charge about US$500 (NZ$775) a day which covers lodgings. Then the animals go for anywhere from US$3000 to US$7000 apiece. Most of the hunter clients are looking at forking out around US$15,000 to US$20,000 for a week-long trip.
‘‘It mounts up. If you have one hunter in for the week who shoots four animals, that’s US$15,000 for these. If you have four hunters in for the week all doing those animals, well, it’s very nice.’’
There are about 20 registered hunting guides in the Upper Clutha Basin alone.
It’s big, he says.
‘‘The guides are doing well out of it, the landowner is doing well out of it and the service industry is doing well out of it.’’
One of the key players in the commercial hunting industry is the New Zealand Association of Game Estates (NZAOGE), which consists of farmers and guides that work together on properties that are ‘‘high-fenced’’.
Simon Guild of High Peak Station, Windwhistle, is the national chair of the NZAOGE.
The organisation represents the investment in the industry, he says.
‘‘A game estate is by definition a fenced area that has to comply with containment standards. We can’t have animals escaping onto neighbouring DOC land. There is rigorous auditing; animal welfare, health and safety, guiding quality, good commercial principles etc.’’
There are 15-to-20 game estates in the country that are either fully audited members or going through the process, he says.
‘‘We want to ensure we have a social licence to operate, that we conform to standards so that people outside the industry can see what a fully audited game estate is doing.’’
Guild is the vice-chairman of the other main player, the New Zealand Professional Hunting Guides Association (NZPHGA). This is more concerned with the guiding/human interaction side of the business, he says. It aims to improve guiding standards as a professional body.
‘‘When you are dealing with the terrain, firearms, animals and people all at once, there are real risks to be considered. The only way you can do this is to have professional guidelines you adhere to and aspire to improve on.’’
Telford says that outside of these two organisations there are numerous freelancers.
‘‘I would say ‘freeloaders’.’’ ‘‘Freelancers often operate in a DOC area without a concession. It’s hard to tell how many there are, probably as many as there are members of the NZPHGA. It comes back to standards – one of the first things DOC requires from a commercial operator is a health and safety plan. A lot of the freelance guys don’t have these or the insurance.’’
The NZPHGA has a registered membership of 135, and along with other hunting groups and commercial users, has been engaged in a robust debate lately with Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage on tahr culling.
Tahr are seen as a resource by hunting guides and recreational hunters and WARO (Wild Animal Recovery Operators), Telford says. The department sees them as a pest.
‘‘I hate that word,’’ he says. Telford’s clients are mainly from overseas and the majority of these are from the US.
‘‘There’s a steady trickle of Europeans, they have a strong hunting heritage. And a scattering of New Zealanders and Australians.’’
Most guides will aim towards having a high-fenced operation, he says. This is also referred to as a ‘‘game estate’’.
‘‘This is purely to take the guesswork out of it. We know how many animals are there, how big they are and you match that up with how many hunters you have coming each season.
‘‘But we are in the service industry and if I need more stags because I have more clients I simply go to a deer farming operation and buy them. That ties in very well with the whole velvet industry. The old stags that come out of the velvet industry and don’t end up at the abattoir end up being hunted.’’
Guild runs the High Peak Game Estate while his brother Hamish looks after the family’s commercial deer farm.
‘‘We started our game estate operation back in the late 80s by fencing off 1800 hectares of our back country. This was a massive undertaking requiring 30 kilometres of fencing,’’ Guild says.
‘‘We were a wholesaler at that point; we provided the land, the animals and the facilities and guides (or outfitters) would turn up with their clients and pay us for use of the property and the animals they took.
‘‘By 2009 the wholesale model had really run its course for us. We were carrying all the risk and didn’t have a direct line to the clients. We decided to take control of the business and my remit was to turn the hunting around.’’
The aim was to capture the top end of the market, Guild says. They had the property and the animals and had co-opted Terrace Downs Resort, just down the road, into supplying the luxury accommodation.
‘‘Once you get a few people through and give them a great experience, they go back and tell their friends, and your brand begins to grow. It’s taken the best part of 10 years to achieve this but now we have some really good agents in the US, Europe and China that are great at sending us top quality clients.’’
What does the client’s day consist of? There is normally a sunrise start, Telford says. Then the day pans out depending on the client’s fitness and expectations, the terrain and the animal being hunted.
‘‘Some of these clients get a bit of a fright when they see the mountains we point them at, and aren’t in the best condition.
‘‘A normal hunt would be 5-6 days and I would be looking for those clients to shoot one or two trophy red stags, a bull tahr, a chamois and a fallow deer.’’
The industry is growing, Guild says. There has been steady growth since the 1980s.
The secret is out about New Zealand as a tourist destination and commercial hunting has been ahead of the game. It’s worth keeping in mind that the visiting hunters are the highestspending, lowest-impact tourist group we have, he says.
Tourism NZ does a great job marketing New Zealand, but hasn’t been keen to know about hunting, he says.
‘‘I think that’s representative of the New Zealand population. We are predominantly an urban population and our industry is of little relevance. And hunting can be controversial, can be polarising. So it’s a good thing that it is kept reasonably discreet.’’
Animal rights activist Hans Kriek from SAFE says that with hunting of any kind, trophy hunting included, the animal is not always killed outright with a clear shot.
‘‘And the terrain some trophy hunting takes place in in New Zealand . . . If you were to shoot an animal and not kill it outright it can be very hard to find." He says the reality is people take pleasure out of going and shooting an animal in the wild, and hanging part of the animal’s dead carcass on the wall.
‘‘They argue that the animal are pests, introduced species so they do it in the name of conservation, that’s used in every country as an excuse, but in reality it’s nothing to do with conservation.’’
But Telford says most Kiwis know nothing about an industry that brings upward of $50m tourism dollars into the New Zealand economy.
‘‘We are the highest net worth industry that tourism has, per capita than any other sector that visits New Zealand,’’ he says. Guild has the last word.
‘‘It would be good to have greater recognition of what the industry contributes so we can hold our heads up and say yes we’re legitimate and doing things right and aren’t going to threaten New Zealand’s image or other tourism or export industries,’’ he says.
‘‘And that we are a valuable component in that whole tourism mix.’’