Disputes which divide organisations

Press, 26 October 1984, Page 17

Disputes which divide organisations

Those involved in making future decisions about the thar have to strike a balance between two objectives which, if not mutually exclusive, cannot both be achieved in full. First, to have enough thar to make flocks attractive to recreational and/or trophy hunters, and with the role they might play in tourism for the region and the country. Second, to control thar numbers so that no damage is done to montane flora and ecosystems, and they do not spread into other areas. Mr Wetere has said he wants submissions from the parties concerned on the future of the thar. These will have to be based on the Forestry Research Institute report, which is the only body of evidence about thar.

However, some of the parties at the Wellington meeting doubted the validity of the report when it said

thar numbers were now very low and their range much restricted. They also criticised the way in which the data had been collected. These complaints may carry the seeds of dispute in the future. It was unfortunate that the National Water and Soil Conservation Authority was not represented at the meeting. It was holding its regular monthly meeting in another part of Wellington at the same time.

But the South Canterbury Catchment Board left the meeting in no doubt about what the authority would have said. The board said that the kernel of the thar problem was that the animals destroyed vegetation and increased erosion. It criticised the report for not emphasising this, and said it wanted strict controls continued to reduce the sppread of thar, leading ultimately to their extermination. These comments had special force

because the high-density thar areas — the Rangitata, Godley, and Macaulay catchments, and the Two Thumb Range — are all in South Canterbury. . However, the South Island Game Recovery Operators’ Association said it wanted the moratorium to continue. It did not say why, but the meeting assumed this was so numbers could build up again to improve their business.

In between these two extremes, the other parties jockeyed for position. There was general agreement that eradication .would never occur unless the Government was prepared to put up a great deal of money. There was a general wish for more detailed costings to be attempted — both for total eradication, and for various future herd sizes — so future plans could be agreed upon with more certainty. Conservation interests, while not

giving away the hope of total eradication, were generally prepared to accept the establishment of an official recreational hunting area from the northern edge of Mount Cook National Park to the Rangitata catchment.

However, conservationists were adamant that such an official R.H.A. should not include any part of the Rakaia catchment. They wanted unrestrited hunting of thar in all other thar areas, and wanted detail of the damage even 1000 thar might do to the vegetation and soil cover in the R.H.A. area.

Hunting interests were more divided about what to do, simply because there is a much wider range of hunting options available for them than conservation options. A number of questions were asked:—

Is recreational hunting of thar to be for local hunters, or international hunters, or both? Can

these two conflicting regimes live together? Who pays to manage a recreational herd? Is it the State, or the

local hunters, or the international hunters, or a combination? How much will they pay? Who will they pay it to? What will they get in return? Who will be responsible for ensuring they get it? There were many other questions of detail, too. For example, should payment be in royalties or by licence, or both, or something else?

Local hunters out for the weekend to bag a thar and have a good tramp are worlds apart from international trophy hunters who travel constantly and pay huge fees to be allowed to bag a top animal. Running a thar herd for both would be fraught with. practical difficulties. Yet to cater for one to the exclusion of the other would have major political implications

(if local hunters were excluded) or in effect reject a valuable tourist asset for a tourist region (if international hunters were excluded). In October, 1982, the statutory National Recreation Hunting Advisory Committee was approached by the Deerstalkers’ Association and asked to look into an R.H.A. for thar. It is still working on this assignment, the delay being in part caused by the need to await the Forestry Research Institute report. One aspect that will be looked at is whether eradication should be sought in the Southern Alps, and a thar colony established at some other more accessible point where control would be easier and cheaper. The’same hope was held for relocating the Fiordland wapiti herd two years ago. The five thar liberated in 1904, joined by another eight in 1909, have created a problem that is still a long way from being solved..