West Coast regional councillor Andy Campbell says there should be more harvesting of wild animals for food rather than being left to rot on the forest floor.
The West Coast Regional Council is reviewing its Regional Pest Management Plan and is considering adding some wild animals as pests for eradication, including feral goats, pigs and deer. There are no pest animals listed in the previous 2018 plan.
Environmental group manager Shanti Morgan said preliminary consultation on the draft plan, set to take effect before the current one expires in 2028, showed the public was split on whether to include wild animals in the next plan.
Notably, the draft has not included wild animals so far, which Morgan described as "bizarre" in a presentation to the West Coast Conservation Board.
The regional council had been considering including feral deer and would also seek Government funding to implement any control measures for them, she said.
Feral deer numbers have been on the rise on the West Coast, with police regularly reporting collisions with motorists on both local roads and State Highways.
However, Campbell told Local Democracy Reporting the pest animals were a resource that should be harvested instead of having ratepayers fund their control.
"If you look back a bit in history in the 60s and 70s, they were hunted by the helicopters and there wasn't a deer problem."
Wild goats were another pest animal, plentiful on the West Coast.
"There are enough people in New Zealand to eat them. We have got to import goat meat to New Zealand. Why don't we just have what we've got? That is probably the most organic meat in the world.
"So, why burden ratepayers and taxpayers with the cost?"
If you turn them into a pest, people will just shoot them and leave them laying on the ground, he said.
When asked whether the council would consider harvesting the pest animals instead of declaring them pests in the plan, Morgan said recreational harvesting fell outside the scope of the Regional Pest Management Plan and was managed by the Department of Conservation.
"Harvesting of wild animals is managed by the Department of Conservation under the Wild Animal Control Act 1977.
"The purpose of an RPMP is to manage pest species where they are causing adverse effects and where management is justified under the Biosecurity Act 1993, rather than to regulate recreational harvesting."
Morgan said the council had received 108 submissions on the draft plan and feedback included concerns around the implementation, costs, and landowner responsibilities.
"At this stage, it would be premature to comment on the detail before that analysis has been completed and considered by council," she said.
The council had not yet formed a position on any of the concerns raised by the public on the plan.
"Councillors will consider the feedback, including any concerns regarding costs and recreational hunting, as part of the upcoming workshop and subsequent public report before determining the preferred direction for the draft RPMP."
The Ministry of Primary Industries says wild food, such as deer and goats, can be gathered for you and your immediate family's consumption
"If you eat recreationally caught wild food you do so at your own risk," the MPI website says.
Meat from wild animals can be sold if the hunter and meat processer are both certified and follow MPI's guidelines.
– LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ on Air
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