West Coast Conservation Board member Robert Wilson told the Greymouth Star yesterday that variable weather plus hunter skill would also have affected how many tahr were killed under the ballot programme.
DoC tahr programme lead Tom Brookman said he was unsure why tahr numbers had reduced in the past season.
However, New Zealand Game Animal Council (GAC) chief executive Corina Jordan said the lower harvest numbers will be having an effect on those wanting to access the trophy animals, along with the operators flying hunters in.
She said the annual tahr hunt, along with DoC control, had also now exceeded the tahr’s breeding replacement rate.
“Theoretically there should be reduced availability of tahr to hunt and therefore no impact on tahr health from a reduced hunter harvest,” Jordan said.
DoC annually controls tahr numbers on the West Coast because of the browsing impact of the small mountain goat on indigenous biodiversity.
In June, the West Coast Regional Council briefed the conservation board for its next West Coast Regional Pest Management Plan.
The council said preliminary public consultations showed a split in opinion about including pest animals like tahr and deer.
DoC established the tahr ballot as a population management tool to encourage recreational hunters to shoot them.
The annual ballots give hunters licensed aerial access to landing sites in the Hooker and Adams areas.
Wilson said the weather also affects where tahr will be, season by season, making it harder at times for hunters to trace them.
“At certain times of the year, tahr migrate up and down the river valleys.
“Some years, they will get a better cull on them because they are higher and they are easy to cull, so it can vary from year to year because of the location of the animals and the timing of the harvest.”
It also depended on a hunter’s skills.
“If you have got good hunters and good blocks you will get good numbers, but if you have got amateur hunters and good blocks and good hunters and poor blocks, that is a bit of a downfall of the ballot system; it does not go on the capability of the recreational hunter.”
Jordan said a lower tahr harvest would affect the Coast hunting support sector.
“Reduced hunting activity will have significant economic impacts on local West Coast businesses such as helicopter operators, support industries and hunting tourism operators, particularly during off-peak tourism.”
– LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ on Air.