Deer: Game or Pest?
D EER ARE A NOXIOUS PEST. Some claim they merely duplicate the browsing moa, but New Zealand's vegetation evolved with the moa and in a biologicallybalanced relationship. Deer have virtually exterminated many palatable native plants from our forests. In Fiordland, for example, only two colonies of the endangered tussock
Chionchloa spiralis remain following deer browsing. Deer threaten our bird species too. In Pureora deer have eliminated most of the kokako food species from the lower forest tiers. In Northland’s deer-free forests, kokako in Puketi feed right down to the ground as plant food species still grow in the lowest for-
est tiers. Kokako are found in lower densities in deer-plagued forests of Pureroa, Puketi and Rotoehu. In Fiordland deer feed on prime takahe food plants, and by selective browsing kill off tussocks important to the takahe. ‘SaaS.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/FORBI19900201.2.17
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Forest and Bird, Volume 21, Issue 1, 1 February 1990, Page 15
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Tapeke kupu
141Deer: Game or Pest? Forest and Bird, Volume 21, Issue 1, 1 February 1990, Page 15
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