“SAFARIS” IN N.Z.'S MOUNTAINS

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30823, 7 August 1965, Page 4

“SAFARIS” IN N.Z.'S MOUNTAINS

Hunter For Hire. By Rex Forrester and Neil Illingworth. A. H. and A. W. Reed. 187 pp.

No New Zealander has worked harder in recent years to sell his country’s unrivalled hunting attractions to overseas tourists than Rex Forrester. Based in Rotorua, Mr Forrester is yet a familiar sight in Canterbury and other parts of the South Island where his “New Zealand Safari” utility vehicles take tourists up rugged, mountainous river valleys to the world's best red deer, chamois, and thar shooting areas.

After years of professional shooting in which he shot thousands of animals in New Zealand’s mountains Mr Forrester pioneered safari trips for overseas sportsmen. In nine years of this work he has given hundreds of shooters and fishermen the sporting trip of a lifetime; his success and skill have earned New Zealand hunting a high reputation.

In “Hunter for Hire” the author tells of a unique and adventurous career in our mountains, and his experiences make absorbing reading. Hunting was in Mr Forrester’s blood from an early age, and his schooling took second place to pig and game shooting. “Everything that wasn’t hunting was for the cissies,” he says. But it was the Southern Alps in Canterbury and the West Coast that really made him. Venturing to the South Island at the age of 15 just after the war, when deer were plentiful and skin prices high, the author learnt hunting the hard way in the Taipo valley. He shared the valley with the Dillon family, who lived a pioneering existence panning for gold seven miles from the nearest road. Eighteen months and several hundred deer later, with skin prices falling almost overnight, he applied for a Government shooter’s job and began thar and chamois shooting at Mount Cook.

He shot in the peak years of professional hunting, when game were in vast numbers, and with three other renowned hunters he set about the task of knocking back the thar and chamois herds—frequently to the tune of up to 100 beasts a day between them. These men and other Government hunters of their time comprised a band of professionals who shot thousands of game animals apiece. Tallies of 50 a dav, and 1000 for a seven month’s season, were not uncommon.

The country was steep and hard, and stalking the herds

involved climbing on icefields,] snow, rock, and scree. Shooters became skilled climbers. They had to, to survive. Nonetheless, the mountains exacted their toll and one of his companions, Dave Lyes, fell to his death while shooting thar.

Mr Forrester also shot goats, pigs, and other game in his years as a Government culler, putting in seasons in various parts of New Zealand. After a time in Australia he poisoned opossums and worked as a Government game ranger in the North Island before going into the safari business. If there can be one criticism of the author it would be his loose attitude, whilst a game ranger, to the poaching of native pigeons by Maoris and other offenders. To those who have seen these and other native birds which enhance our bush country there can be no acceptable excuse for anybody to wantonly destroy them. Mr Forrester started his safaris with visions of a fortune to be made, and a life of idle luxury between trips. The real picture, he soon found, was quite different. Guiding tourists, it would seem, is not every New Zealand shooter’s billy of tea. Mr Forrester found that he had to be driver, cook, mechanic, chambermaid, taxidermist, gunsmith, carpenter, laundry-boy, barman, travel agent, and a host of other roles for his clients. He found that most tourists were not fitted for hunting in New Zealand conditions. They had never been expected to carry a pack, or to ford rivers and get their feet wet Only about four of the hundreds he took out would have succeeded as New Zealand deer-cullers.

However, there were some outstanding exceptions and the author made many lifelong friends amongst sportsmen whom he has sent home richly satisfied. At first sight the fees which a tourist pays for a safari, £lOOO a month (equivalent to £33 a day) would seem ample to have set the author up in the lucrative fashion which he had first envisaged. Once again, however, the real situation was vastly different. He had to thoroughly abuse his four-wheel-drive vehicle to get his clients up to game in relatively untouched areas. In Canterbury’s thar and chamois country this involved bouncing up rocky riverbeds, and charging through snowfed streams and rivers with water above the floor.

Maintenance bills came to £5OO a year, and at each overhaul the panels had to be

beaten out flat again and fuel and ignition systems checked. Tyres and broken springs had to be replaced regularly, while a set of shock absorbers lasted little more than one safari. Mr Forrester makes an appeal for official appreciation of the tourist asset we have in our game animals. More and more overseas sportsmen are coming here to sample the unrestricted shooting, and figures which the author compiled for the Government some years ago showed that every client on his hunting safaris spent about £35 in New Zealand for each animal bagged. The figure since then has probably risen to £5O each, he says. A month’s safari costs the shooter £lOOO, and Forrester spends £7OO of this amount to run it and pay expenses. His profits are also spent in New Zealand, making the business a sound overseas revenue earner. Mr Forrester warns against complacency, and urges the Government to take some steps to preserve this irreplaceable asset. No other country has anything like it left, and once it has gone it

can never be replaced.

Mr Forrester sees the inconsistency in one Department encouraging hunters with glossy advertisements in overseas magazines while another campaigns for total extermination. He proposes in his book a scheme of game management, including shooting licences, which would be very much cheaper than the present extermination policy and which could double the revenue from tourist sportsmen in a few years.

Mr Forrester has helped publicise this tourist potential by assisting with such ventures as the field-sports marathon early last year in which the American Ted Williams caught a big game fish, four trout, and three deer in 10| hours. The idea for this came from the Tourist Department.

The author has blazed the trail in a brand-new venture in New Zealand hunting, and the rigours entailed in filling overseas sportsmen’s appetites in our back country must sometimes make a safari on the African veldts seem tame by comparison.