A council contractor has been airlifted to hospital in a critical condition after a hunting incident linked to a pest eradication project on an island in Auckland’s Hauraki Gulf overnight.<\/p>\n
Emergency services responded to reports a person had been injured after a gun was fired in bushland on Kawau Island at around 12.50am.<\/p>\n
St John responded with a helicopter, with the crew taking one person to Auckland City Hospital in a critical condition.<\/p>\n
Auckland Council confirmed the incident involved a staff member of one of its contracted companies, working on the council’s pest eradication project.<\/p>\n
“Our thoughts are with those involved in this incident – we’re in touch with the contractor and the incident has been reported to the NZ Police and WorkSafe,” said the council’s general manager environmental services, Samantha Hill.<\/p>\n
Hill said hunting operations had been suspended until further notice.<\/p>\n
“Along with our project partners, we’ll continue to support the investigation in any way we can.”<\/p>\n
Acting Detective Inspector Megan Goldie said a 44-year-old man has been charged with careless use of a firearm and will appear in North Shore District Court tomorrow.<\/p>\n
WorkSafe NZ had been notified of the incident.<\/p>\n
“Our inspectors are making initial inquiries to understand the circumstances,” a spokesperson told 1News.<\/p>\n
Hill said the council sent regular alerts and communications to landowners and residents about pest management activities.<\/p>\n
“Hunting takes place at night, well after the last Kawau Cruises vessel has departed the island and returned to the mainland,” she said. <\/p>\n
“Hunting operations are carried out by professional, specialist hunters working in teams, assisted by thermal devices and under rigorous safety conditions.”<\/p>\n
Kawau Island, about 1.4km off the coast just south of the T\u0101wharanui Peninsula, is a popular holiday and hunting destination.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A council contractor has been airlifted to hospital in a critical condition after a hunting incident linked to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":574803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[51,67,111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-574802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-auckland","tag-crime-and-justice","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574802","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=574802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/574803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}