An autumn tahr hunt at Aoraki/Mt Cook
Get out in a tent in our dramatic Southern Alps and create memories to last a lifetime.
There is something magical about being in the mountains in autumn. The first frost on your tent, the sunrise turning huge alpine tussocks golden for as far as you can see, the crystal clear air that comes with the first snowfall on the high peaks. The braided rivers far below running like a silver thread through the mountain landscape in the late-afternoon sun. The snow tussocks laden with seed blowing in the earlymorning light.
Remarkably our hardy alpine gentians are still in full flower. Heading to Aoraki/Mt Cook with a bunch of mates who all shared a love of hunting when we first met 50 years ago at Canterbury’s School of Forestry seemed the right way to remember our long-standing love of the Southern Alps after a two-day forestry conference in Christchurch.
Tenure review has created so many new opportunities that didn’t exist when we all first met in 1975. We choose a gorgeous site high above Lake Pukaki with an alpine tarn for water and superb views of Mt Sefton and La Perouse.
Climbing hills was much easier when we were young varsity students, but the thrill of looking up into the high, scrubby screes and stalking mobs of tahr brings all those fond memories back and makes the climb even more exhilarating. Typically, the tahr were all a kilometre away and high above us. The trick is to see them before they see you.
The first day we saw one tahr and three fallow deer as we sat around a campsite fire of wilding pines. Such is the tragedy of wilding conifers, we were seeing larch and pines as high as 1700m. In a warming climate, the odds are just stacked in their favour, unfortunately.
As foresters who learnt our skills under one of New Zealand’s foremost native forest ecologists – Professor Peter McKelvey (who had taught us all about tussock and beech mast years) – it breaks your heart to see our magnificent tussock and alpine landscapes threatened by exotics so close to Aoraki/Mt Cook National Park.
Over the last 10 years government, local government and high country farmers have spent $30 million in the Mackenzie Basin controlling them. The battle is far from over. Our campfire put an end to three.
I had been part of the government decision to put $100m in to help control this incredible impact on our dryland and tussock landscapes. Over the last eight years, government, local government, forestry, and farmers have spent $170m getting on top of this rapidly developing consequence of warmer winters and windblown seed.
The funding is now $10m a year, but needs twice that. The alternative is that 90,000 hectares a year will be quickly taken over by spreading conifers that have such an edge over our native species in a warming and windier world.
Positively, Te Manahuna Aoraki – a partnership between Ngāi Tahu, high country farmers, NEXT Foundation, the Department of Conservation (DOC) and Environment Canterbury – is making huge inroads to control animal pests over 310,000ha of drylands to bring back the unique wildlife of our braided rivers and alpine birds.
Species like kakī/black stilts, kea, rock wren and wrybill are coming back from the brink after six years of predator control against stoats, rats, hedgehogs, Canada geese and feral cats. In dry summers like this one, the feral cats move further up the Canterbury rivers, killing even more kea.
The real drivers of predator numbers here, however, are rabbits on the flats and hares at high altitude. Reduce these and the food for cats and stoats dries up. It’s complicated, but these incredible conservation rangers, scientists and dog handlers are working out how to take the entire area predator free bit by bit.
Forty per cent of the area being restored is private farmland, showing the huge commitment by Mackenzie Basin high country farmers to achieve the first restoration of a dryland landscape in New Zealand.
Ngāi Tahu is closely involved in restoring its mana to these special landscapes and bringing back traditional mahinga kai that fed people for hundreds of years from this special inland basin: Tū Te Rakiwhānoa drylands.
Meridian Energy and Genesis Energy are also playing key roles in moving the original Project River Recovery to a new phase as part of their long-term water consents.
To see so many partners newly focused on the environmental future of this incredible place is so encouraging after years of, at times, acrimonious relations between conservation and farming.
While tahr are at low numbers in the national park, outside they are pretty much everywhere – in the mountain cliffs, on the tussock slopes and right down to bushline.
I had been at the forefront of the Tahr Plan in 2018 when DOC attempted to reduce the numbers to a level that would not see continued deterioration of our special alpine environments. More than 40,000 hunters signed a petition to have the department reconsider its target of 10,000 tahr.
Six years on, it has been great to see the relationship develop with recreational and trophy hunters. DOC has agreed to leave bull tahr on 425,000ha of the Southern Alps and publish maps to encourage hunters to areas with the highest tahr numbers.
Some of the international hunters are now some of highest contributors to our tourism economy, such is the worldwide attraction to hunting in our mountains. What surprised me was the numbers of tahr now living among the dead wilding pines.
DOC’s ground hunting team is also finding large numbers living in the bush. This month, a four-person crew from Hokitika shot 450 in a week.
Around the fire eating tahr and venison steaks, we recalled lecturers we loved and hilarious times on field trips to Harihari and Cass. Sadly, few of our lecturers are alive today.
The School of Forestry was a special time for us all, with most of us going on to lifelong careers in commercial forestry or environmental management, such was the broad range of Professor McKelvey's legacy.
It was great to be with a bunch of mates recalling all the fun times together and to be out there on the hill once again hunting tahr and deer in such a beautiful setting. The mauve sunset over Mt Sefton and first light on its snowy silhouette reminded us why we all still love the Southern Alps.
After three magic windless days, the nor’wester arch arrived over the Alps, vibrating our tents all night. It was time to head out before the river rose.
We live in one of the most magnificent places on Earth where friendships in nature endure lifetimes – never ever forget it. There is no better country on the planet. Get out in a tent in our dramatic Southern Alps to smell the tussocks, watch the Milky Way at night and wake up to the most stupendous sunrises shaking frost off your tent.
It's all at our back door and on magic autumn days it’s truly one of New Zealand’s greatest outdoor experiences.