Live-deer recovery firms in trouble

Press, 21 April 1986, Page 20

Live-deer recovery firms in trouble

PA Invercargill Helicopter firms are worried that the oncethriving live deer recovery industry may no longer exist in less than a year.

The Government’s proposed changes to livestock taxation have created great uncertainty in deer farming. Helicopter pilots say that it is no longer economic for them to catch deer, flying hours have been cut about 70 per cent on average, many firms have put their machines up for sale, and almost nobody is buying captured deer.

The Forest Service and Fiordland National Park staff are worried about increasing deer numbers in the park damaging vegetation. The park’s chief ranger,

Mr P. Green, said that if the deer were not culled privately, the Government would have to assume the "very expensive” costs. “The people who write the tax laws are not necessarily concerned with the vegetation,’’ he said.

Mr Green was not concerned about the problem in the short term, but said the park might have to budget for deer culling in two or three years at the expense of standard park services. Mr Dick Deaker, of Central Western helicopters, Te Anau, said: “It took 15 years to bring the deer numbers under control and now they are going to bring them back up again.” A district Forest Service spokesman, Mr K. Mawhinney, said the service was watching deer

numbers, but planned “to wait to see how things settle out"

Pilots say the high costs of a helicopter require each live deer to be sold for $l6OO to $lBOO to make it worth their while to fly. Live hinds fetched $2BOO last year; now they are . selling s for - , about $l2OO. Mr Peter Saxton, of Queenstown, estimates it costs $3BO an hour to fly a helicopter, plus the pilot’s pay.

Pilots say that many helicopters are sitting in hangers most of the time. “The problem is people lack confidence to buy deer when they do not know what the rules will be,” said the South Island vice-president and Southland councillor on the Deer Farmers’ Association, Mr Peter Ryan.