Even a High Court ruling hasn’t put an end to the fight over tahr culls in the Central South Island.

Close to 500 cars clogged the road from Lake Pukaki to Mt Cook last Sunday (July 19), driving in a slow convoy to protest the commencement of tahr culls last week by the Department of Conservation (DOC).

The protest was organised by the NZ Tahr Foundation (NZTF), which has fought tooth and nail against DOC’s Tahr Control Operational Plan, which originally planned to triple the number of tahr culls of previous years.

After NZTF filed judicial review proceedings in June, Justice Dobson ruled that until DOC reconsidered its decision and consulted with stakeholders, it could only carry out half of the culls signalled in the plan.

NZTF’s Willie Duley said DOC’s decision to start culling before undertaking consultation with the hunting sector is “another kick in the guts”.

“Mature bull tahr in our national parks are the ultimate recreational and commercial resource and worth up to $14,000 each to the economy so we are quite frustrated that DOC have chosen to do this part of the operation before consultation has begun,” Willie said.

While Willie acknowledged the High Court decision, he said NZTF had hoped DOC would have consulted with the hunting sector before the culls began.

Tahr are found in the central Southern Alps between the Rakaia and Whitcombe valleys in the north to about Lake Hawea in the south, and management units include parts of the Hunter Valley, Timaru Creek, Boundary Creek, the Ahuriri Valley, and the Landsborough.

DOC said it started the culls as a matter of urgency last Thursday (June 17). 

“National parks have the greatest protection status of all conservation land and we need to protect and preserve them for New Zealanders,” DOC operations director Dr Ben Reddiex said.

“High localised densities of tahr can damage alpine habitats by transforming tall tussocks and subalpine shrublands to a grassy turf or bare ground,” he said.

“This work is urgent. Not only are we working around alpine winter weather conditions, but in just a few months a new generation of tahr will be born, putting further pressure on the environment.”

He said thousands of bull tahr and other tahr will be left for trophy hunters across 425,000ha of public conservation land, but in the 148,000ha national parks, New Zealand’s native species need to come first.

The NZTF say this isn’t good enough: “Tahr hunters regard Aoraki/Mt Cook and Westland Tai Poutini National Parks as the pinnacle of the Kiwi alpine hunting experience,” Willie said. “To have this taken away without even being consulted is a very bitter pill to swallow.”

Yesterday (July 21) the New Zealand Conservation Authority (NZCA) came out in support of the culling: there is an “ecological imperative to immediately control tahr populations in these national parks,” NZCA chair Edward Ellison said.

Willie said Sunday’s “peaceful protest” was an attempt to draw attention to the issue, which he said flew in the face of post COVID-19 economic recovery efforts.

“All we want to do is just get around the table and work out a compromise,” he said.

PHOTO: Supplied