![\"Tahr](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/4JMFTML_Thar_bin_JPG.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nWarning: This story contains an image of the dead animal that some readers might find upsetting.<\/p>\n
The carcass of a Himalayan Tahr was found in a public rubbish bin in the centre of Methven in Canterbury this week.<\/p>\n
An image of the carcass stuffed in the bin circulated on a local social media page on Monday before being removed.<\/p>\n
Ashburton District Council infrastructure group manager Neil McCann said the incident was reported to the council as illegal dumping via the Snap Send Solve app on Monday.<\/p>\n
“Our litter bin truck went to collect it early the following morning, but the carcass had already been removed.<\/p>\n
“The bin was cleaned to prevent any issues with odours.<\/p>\n
“As the carcass had already been removed, there was nothing to follow up.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The carcass of a Himalayan Tahr was dumped into a public rubbish bin in Methven this week.<\/p>\n
LDR \/ supplied<\/p>\n
He said the council’s solid waste bylaw states that public litter bins can’t be used in a manner that creates a nuisance, is offensive, or creates a risk to public health.<\/p>\n
“It’s clearly not the appropriate place to dump a carcass.<\/p>\n
“Public litter bins are provided for disposing of small amounts of rubbish generated while out and about.”<\/p>\n
One of the organisers of the Mid Canterbury Hunting Competition, which happened over the weekend, dismissed claims online that it was related to the event.<\/p>\n
“Didn’t hear about it on the day, nothing about it now and it’s Thursday, so nothing to do with us,” Andy Wilson said.<\/p>\n
Organisers have no control over what people do outside of the competition, he said.<\/p>\n
“That could have been anybody.”<\/p>\n
McCann said the council was “not aware of any evidence that would connect this incident to the competition”.<\/p>\n
The incident comes a year after a dead wallaby was dumped in the centre of Ashburton.<\/p>\n
The council’s CCTV network came under scrutiny when it failed to help identify the person responsible.<\/p>\n
The council reported that the CCTV footage captured a 4-wheel drive vehicle entering the West Street car park and a person dragging a wallaby over the rail crossing to the timber seating next to the public toilets on East Street.<\/p>\n
The vehicle was too far away to clearly identify, and the person dragging the wallaby was wearing dark clothing and was also unable to be identified.<\/p>\n
For any prosecution, the CCTV footage has to provide an identifiable image to police.<\/p>\n
-LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Warning: This story contains an image of the dead animal that some readers might find upsetting. The carcass…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496290,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[111,139,69,147,406],"class_list":["post-496289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496289","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=496289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}