‘Everyone wants to go deer farming’

Press, 19 February 1979, Page 2

‘Everyone wants to go deer farming’

PA Hamilton Everyone wants to go deer farming. This was the message at a deer-farming seminar in Hamilton, attended by more than 300 people from all walks of life and many parts of the North Island. i Experts spoke of big money to be made from I stags’ antlers and an exciting market potential for venison. Mr Purdon, of the New j Zealand Forest Service at Auckland, said applications for licences to capture and farm deer were coming in so ' fast it was almost impossible |to keep up. Last November, more than 2200 applications were being processed by the Forest Service and the Minis- ! try of Agriculture, he said.

j The seminar was told : that deer cullers and persons | Who went out with rifles to ! kill red deer were turning to ■capturing them alive by all I possible means; while the demand for printed material I and advice was well ahead of • the supply. The visitors heard from experts of soaring world prices for the antler velvet ' and growing markets for the I venison and by-products, ini eluding hides. They were itold of enterprises bringing in more than $40,000 a year gross income! and high input costs were not deterring applicants. Mr T, Wallis, of Alpine Helicopters, Wanaka, and the owner of 20 helicopters, held ( the audience spellbound with stories of methods of capturI ing feral deer for deer , farmers.

He told of various methods including nets- shot from a three-barrelled rifle across the bodies of running deer, and drug darts with radio transmitters inside to guide helicopters to the doped deer. Changes in regulations, marketing arrangements, and transport, systems were being rapidly set up to meet the colossal demand, the semi nar was told.