Help may be at hand for West Coast farmers and landowners plagued by growing mobs of feral deer – but probably not for another year.
The West Coast Regional Council was about to put deer on the list of pests it worked to control, and planned to consult the public about options for getting the numbers down.
South Westland farmer Thomas Condon told LDR this week that deer were destroying native forest on public conservation land and mobs of up to 30 animals a night came down onto his farm in the Mahitahiti valley, south of Fox Glacier, to graze on his best pasture.
The fifth-generation beef farmer said the carrying capacity of his farm was down 20%, and he had just spent $35,000 on deer fencing in the hope of growing some feed crops.
Condon was just one of many Coast landowners reporting a deer problem, according to the WCRC.
The council's environmental science manager Shanti Morgan said reports about increasing feral deer numbers were coming in from other parts of the region.
"We're currently developing a regional biosecurity strategy and reviewing our Regional Pest Management Plan, and as part of that work we’ll be looking at programmes for ungulates, including deer, to support our communities and protect productive land and native ecosystems."
Whether that might mean intensive culling by shooters, a poisoning programme, or both, was to be decided. The council was working on a draft proposal and expected to take it to public consultation inmid-2026.
Any deer control strategy would mean working closely with the DOC, Morgan said.
"About 84% of the West Coast is public conservation land so our approach will require very close liaison with the Department of Conservation."
DOC had no specific deer policy or budget and said its main focus in South Westland has been on keeping tahr numbers down, although it has culled deer numbers in a couple of trouble spots, at Mokihinui and Maruia.
Regional Councillor Andy Campbell said he had seen half a dozen deer around his dairy farm, but larger mobs were now being sighted in the Harihari area.
"They come out of the bush in winter and eat the swedes – they’re breeding up and if keeps going like this it’s going to be real problem here as well."
Feral deer were also a bovine TB vector – and the disease last popped up in two of his cows about six years ago, despite intensive 1080 control in the wider area, Campbell said.
"In the 1970s and '80s, deer were no threat, because the wild venison export trade was booming and helicopter hunters kept the numbers down.
"But then DOC started using 1080 for pest control, and it killed the export trade overnight. If we stopped using 1080 as a resource the hunters would keep the numbers down again," he suggested.
Thomas Condon said it was too late for that: the few hunters who've been interested in shooting on his land failed to make a dent in deer numbers, and the pests were now at a level in the Mahitahi where only an aerial poison drop would make a real difference.
Meanwhile, the animals were starting to move closer to urban areas on the Coast.
A landowner living near Shantytown just south of Greymouth, reported on social media this week that deer were appearing on her property, but too close to the neighbour's property to shoot.
"They’re eating the tops out of the new trees we've planted, and the hoof prints in the ground are impressive," she told LDR.
– LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
SHARE ME