{"id":447830,"date":"2026-05-27T13:56:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T13:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/447830\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T13:56:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T13:56:09","slug":"an-ongoing-issue-prize-stags-shot-on-private-land-in-otago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/447830\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;An ongoing issue&#8217;: Prize stags shot on private land in Otago"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  [&amp;_p]:tit-sub-xl tit-sub-xl md:[&amp;_p]:d-tit-sub-xl md:d-tit-sub-xl mb-[1.3rem]\">Two youths in Central Otago have been referred to Youth Justice, accused of unlawfully hunting and killing a pair of prize stags on private land.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">The deer were shot and killed in Bendigo on May 17.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">Following an investigation, police from Cromwell and Queenstown carried out search warrants today in Cromwell and Lake Hayes. <\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">The youths were referred to a Youth jJustice process, police said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">One of the youths, a firearms licence holder, had their permit and firearms seized.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">&#8220;Police also recovered antlers that were believed to have belonged to the two stags. These will be returned to the owner.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">Police said they were disappointed that unlawful hunting had occurred.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">&#8220;Unfortunately, poaching and unlawful hunting continues to be an ongoing issue across the wider district. These are not only for personal safety reasons but also for the flow on effect from the damage caused to rural residents, farmers properties and trophy hunting businesses.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">&#8220;Hunting without explicit permission from a landowner, farmer, or forestry manager is illegal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">&#8220;On public conservation land, a Department of Conservation permit is mandatory.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">Anyone who was a victim of poaching was asked to make a report to police via 105.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two youths in Central Otago have been referred to Youth Justice, accused of unlawfully hunting and killing a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":447831,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[50,67,1080,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-447830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-animals","tag-crime-and-justice","tag-dunedin-otago","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447830","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=447830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447830\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}