{"id":408926,"date":"2026-05-02T21:41:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T21:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/408926\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T21:41:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T21:41:09","slug":"fish-and-game-not-concerned-about-vigilantes-flying-drones-at-duck-hunters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/408926\/","title":{"rendered":"Fish and Game not concerned about vigilantes flying drones at duck hunters"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/p>\n

\nDuck shooting season opened on Saturday.
\nPhoto: Supplied \/ Fish and Game\n<\/p>\n

Fish and Game says it is not concerned about vigilantes flying drones at hunters this gamebird season.<\/p>\n

Duck hunting opened on Saturday, with Minister for Hunting and Fishing James Meager among the thousand that took part in the annual season opening.<\/p>\n

Meager said there had in the past been issues with animal rights protesters flying drones towards hunters, as well as blocking access to public land.<\/p>\n

Fish and Game chief operating officer Richie Cosgrove said those incidents were uncommon.<\/p>\n

“Protesters have targeted that for a number of years, but I think most of the hunters out there are well versed in how to deal with that.”<\/p>\n

Animal Justice Party spokesperson Danette Wereta earlier told RNZ<\/a> duck hunting was not an effective way to control the population, and was banned in other countries.<\/p>\n

“It really does avoid the real solutions, and there are better alternatives,” she said.<\/p>\n

Cosgrove said he was pleased with the start of the gamebird season, and the mood was upbeat, despite challenging conditions for hunters.<\/p>\n

The numbers participating in the opening were similar to those seen at the start of last year’s season, he said.<\/p>\n

“I would say the numbers were pretty good. In the hunting spots that we went we could see lots of hunters.”<\/p>\n

Compliance with licences and limits among hunters was strong, he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Duck shooting season opened on Saturday. Photo: Supplied \/ Fish and Game Fish and Game says it is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408927,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45],"class_list":["post-408926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408926\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}