Draft plan released

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 6, Issue 287, 23 May 1989, Page 4

Draft plan released

Recreational hunters need to be informed and made to feel "part of the action" in Department of Conservation (DOC) planning, according to a draft wild animal management plan just produced for DoC's Maniapoto District.

The district, which takeis in the Pureora Forest Park and most of the King Country, contain high value habitat for endangered species but also contain introduced wild animals like goats, deer and opossum, the draft plan said. It said recreational hunters were doing a good job of controlling deer numbers and "should be able to maintain herds at stable levels". But if DoC wanted to increase their

effectiveness, it needed to increase recreational hunters' satisfaction. "Satisfied hunters will keep coming back to hunt and are likely to be more co-operative with (DoC) management staff, " the report said. It recommended that hunter groups be involved in management planning and that DoC help inform and train hunters in things like bushcraft, route finding and hunting skills.

Competitions were recommended as a way to improve communications and increase hunter interest and it proposed inviting sport hunting organisations to take on "conservation animal control projects" on some conservation land. The draft plan reviewed the history of wild animal establishment, their impacts and damage. It also considered the natural values of DoC land and ranked these in order of national, regional and local importance. The plan evaluated the management potential of recreational, commercial and DoC

hunting, provided a priority listing for wild animal control and would be effective for the next 10 years. One example of natural value ranking was the 4000 hectare Waipapa Ecological Area, in the Pureora State Forest, Animal control This was listed as a high priority for wild animal control because of its rare status as an unmodified dense lowland podocarp forest. The area also contained nationally scarce wetlands. Within the ecological area lived about 50 endangered kokako as well as kaka, North Island robin and the plant Myriophyllum robustum which was classified as vulnerable. Wild animals which threaten this habitat include opossums in moderate to high numbers, pigs, cats and rabbits at low numbers together with the occasional goat and Norway rat. The plan noted that, although recreational hunters were controlling deer numbers, goats continued to increase since the commercial capture boom

ended in 1987. Goats were not valued as much as deer by recreational hunters and had to be available in higher numbers before many people would hunt them. On the question of dogs the draft report recommended that special permits should be obtained before they could be used on conservation land and that the permit should limit dog numbers to two. It also recommended that from mid-March through April dogs be banned from Pureora to allow deer stalkers a chance to hunt. DoC's Waikato Region wild animal management officer, Simon Kelton, said the draft plan was part of regional undertaking' to create a co-ordinated approach to wild animal control. "When DoC first startfed we produced a regional wild animal management strategy and the next step was to have individual management plans for each of the five districts. "These tell us where " our problems are and what conservation issues we face," he said.