Deer On His Doorstep

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30947, 31 December 1965, Page 4

Deer On His Doorstep

Deer On My Doorstep. Byi Colin Davey. A. 11. and I A. W. Reed. 174 pp.

Although many hundreds of keen deerstalkers roam New Zealand’s bush and ranges at every opportunity, few bother to study the animals they hunt and their environment. It is refreshing, therefore, to read an account of deer shooting by an author whose great regard for the mountains and back country and—if non-shooters can understand—for the animals he shoots, has led to his carrying out extensive field research into the inter-relation-ships of trophy sizes, body weights, herd numbers, and the availability and palatability of various kinds of food.

Colin Davey’s “Deer On My Doorstep” is an outstanding account of one man’s attack, over 15 years, on the deer population in a small catchment area near his farm block in the Wairarapa, and the quite striking effect of this on the regeneration of the country and the resultant improvement in trophy heads. At a time when the Government seems to have changed its views on deer policy be-

I cause of the big boost to overI seas funds from the export of venison, skins, and other deer products nearly £1,700,000 in the last year—the author's observations are worth noting. Mr Davey contends that deer have a place in our land but that they must be kept down to reasonable numbers. A deer population balanced only by natural adaptation to feed resources will never satisfy the bird and bush lover, or the genuine trophy hunter. “The only way we can tolerate a deer population in New Zealand is by every shooter working extremely hard to keep the numbers below the natural regeneration level of his particular shooting area. Every shooter should learn to feel that he would rather walk up a certain place a dozen times and see nothing if, on the thirteenth time, he could see or shoot a healthy, shiny-coated large-antlered animal," Mr Davey says. Support for the author's conclusions has been gained in a remarkable way. His home shooting locality comprises a relatively small area, with favourable conditions for deer, and separated from another, larger bush area by a wide, open river valley. He has shot this region most week-ends and spare time, and has averaged four deer a week in this last 10 years. At first the deer were very numerous, but in recent years this tally has been much harder to maintain. Results of his thinning out the deer have been a marked increase, in the last five years, in the size of the animals and in the weight of their skins. There has also been a slow but steady improvement in the heads. Many more now show promise of big things to come than was the case even three years ago. And since 1960 there has been a definite improvement in the regeneration of the bush, and with it the native bird life. Mr Davey’s studies have also extended to the wapiti areas of the Southern Lakes and Fiordland, where he has found that his conclusions on red deer still apply— the intelligent culling of the herds so that they will again produce world class heads such as those bagged in an earlier era.

The book is far from being a mere scientific work on deer management, however. Shooting, and the mountains and bush have been Mr Davey’s absorbing interest and he conveys the tremendous appeal of it in his writing. The book abounds with vivid accounts of the thrill of the stalk. One of the most absorbing is that of his search for the near-extinet moose in an unknown and rugged region of Fiordland. The many excellent photographs of close-ups of animals in the New Zealand wilds comprise one of the best collections in any book written on our back country.

The publication by Hamish Hamilton of a collection of 14 of Raymond Chandler’s stories under the title “The Smell of Feer” will please the many enthusiastic readers of an acknowledged master of detective story fiction—an American wbo tells good stories, chiefly about Philip Marlowe, written in a polished literary, style.