Thar game ranching stops on station

Press, 11 December 1982, Page 13

Thar game ranching stops on station

Thar game ranching has stopped on Mount Hutt station and dispersal started of its captive herd.

Forestry rangers tried to seize the animals, being raised as targets for overseas trophy hunters, about six months ago. but retreated when faced with 19 wild thar, not the seven they had expected.

The Forest Service took its case to court and later refused an application by the station manager. Mr K. B. Hood, to hold thar outside their feral range which stretches as far north as the Rakaia River.

An appeal to the Minister of Forests. Mr Elworthy, failed, but the decision to start disbanding the herd has been a bonus for Lincoln College researchers.

The seven youngest thar went to the college's animal research farm last week while checks are still being made to see if Erewhon station can take the remaining animals under the conditions of its holding permit.

The station owners and Wildlife Enterprises, Ltd, a small Christchurch company which organises hunting expeditions for mainly American and Canadian clients, hopes that the new homes are onlv temporary.

"We will still be fighting to hold the thar here." said Mr ■Hood. "It has got to go exactly the same route as deer farming and we hope it does not take as long." The captured animals were the nucleus of a breeding herd, destined to join red and fallow deer which the station already provides for the company’s clients within a 65ha fenced area. Thar were about the fifth most wanted trophy animals in the world, he said. For the last four seasons Wildlife Enterprises had flown clients by helicopter into the feral range to hunt thar, but the venture needed to guarantee kills to be successful.

"They shoot only one of a species and that is all they want," he said.

A judge dismissed the Crown prosecution, but ruled in his summary that the herd was being kept outside the feral range. However, Mr Hood said that the Minister had certain discretionary powers in deciding its boundaries.

“We are so close to it and there have been thar shot on Mount Hutt by ordinary

hunters." he said. The station had kept ownership of its thar and a zoo or public gardens licence were still possibilities which would allow them to stay. In ,the meantime, game ranching of deer continues on Mount Hutt, the station hoping to stock wapiti and white tail deer in its fenced game area next hunting season.

Mr Hood has also been trying unsuccessfully for the last six months to get Lands and Survey Department permission to extend the fenced area on to Crown land. Mr T. Pierson, of Wildlife Enterprises, defended game ranching which he said could earn New Zealand about $l2 million annually within the next decade. “It is not like hunting in Hagley Park," he said. Sportsmen still had to stalk the animals over broken terrain.

A senior college lecturer in animal science, Mr A. Familton, said that its recently acquired thar were being kept indoors until they became used to human contact, before release into fenced paddocks. “Handling is going to be our first problem," he said. Thar were capable of jumping I.Bm high fences.

Little was known about thar, and he believed that it was the first herd to be studied in captivity. The research programme would concentrate on the breeding capabilities of the animals, compared with other breeds. Government policy strictly controls the spread" of feral thar. introduced to New Zealand in the last century, because they extensively graze vegetation and cause erosion. Mount Hutt is regarded as a particularly sensitive area of land.