Hunters and conservationists have taken aim at the Department of Conservation (DOC) over its tahr cull plan. 

The Tahr Foundation has filed a High Court injunction to halt DOC’s Tahr Control Operational Plan for 2020/2021, which triples the number of culls of previous years and took effect yesterday (July 1). 

The Game Animal Council and Tahr Foundation said they were outraged to discover that after limited consultation the cull plan was announced at the “eleventh hour”.

“We, along with other members of the Tahr Plan Implementation Liaison Group, received the final Tahr Control Plan from DOC at 11.03pm last [Tuesday] night, just hours before operations were due to start,” Game Animal Council chair Don Hammond said.

Tahr are found in the central Southern Alps between about the Rakaia and Whitcombe valleys in the north to about Lake Hawea in the south.

DOC had been working with the liaison group, Ngāi Tahu, and the hunting sector to over time reduce the size of the tahr population - which have a significant impact on threatened alpine and sub-alpine vegetation - but the groups say the last minute release of the cull plan is disingenuous. 

MP Jacqui Dean said the tahr cull plan was bad for hunters and taxpayers. 

“The commercial tahr hunting industry contributes $17 million to the economy and provides valuable jobs,” Jacqui said. 

She said it would hurt an industry that had already suffered because of COVID-19 and which was committed to helping reduce tahr numbers.

DOC’s tahr Control Operational Plan for 2020/2021 focuses on stopping the geographical range of tahr from expanding, controlling all tahr in Aoraki/Mt Cook and Westland Tai Poutini National Parks to the lowest practicable densities, and controlling high densities of female and juvenile tahr across the tahr feral range to reduce tahr impacts and population spread.

Tahr management units include parts of the Hunter Valley, Timaru Creek, Boundary Creek, the Ahuriri Valley, and the Landsborough.

Over time DOC intends to reduce the size of the tahr population back within the limits of the Himalayan Tahr Control Plan 1993.

The Wanaka App contacted local DOC staff who directed them to a communications advisor. Because the matter was before the courts, DOC could not provide comment, the advisor said.

The Tahr Foundation’s case will be heard next Wednesday in the Wellington High Court.

PHOTO: DOC