Deer culling in East Harbour Regional Park Northern Forest

Mike Neighbourly Lead from Eastbourne

Greater Wellington Regional Council Biodiversity department shall be carrying out deer culling in East Harbour Regional Park Northern Forest from 18-31 October 2017. The professional hunter will be only hunting the area when weather conditions area conducive to hunting that area. No hunting will be undertaken on weekends, public holidays or school holidays. Here is a link to the Stff article: www.stuff.co.nz...

Please check www.gw.govt.nz/eastharbour/<www.gw.govt.nz... to see if deer culling is be undertaken that day.

Professional hunters with knowledge of the area and the skills required to operate in the sensitive environment are being employed by GWRC to hunt deer prone areas of the Northern Forest block for wild deer and signs of their presence and shoot all wild animals observed. They will not be hunting the balloted area where public hunting is being carried out.
Although the park will remain open to the public during the culling operation, to avoid any risk to your members, the weeding of pest plants and checking of possum and rodent station, on or off the tracks should be halted when culling is being undertaken.
Members of the public using the area will be advised to stay on the main sign-posted walking tracks and to keep dogs on leads. Warning signs erected at all park entrances will be used to notify the users of the area. To avoid encouraging illegal hunting in the area which would present a significant risk to the public, no wider publicity of the operation will be undertaken.
The culling is necessary to minimise the impact of deer on the ecological values of the forest, which has been identified as an area of high biodiversity value by GWRC’s Biodiversity department.
Heavy browsing of favoured plant species by deer can eliminate individual native species from an area resulting in the loss of diversity and functionality of the forest ecosystem. Reducing wild deer numbers will assist GWRC, MIRO and EHEA in their efforts towards restoring the native ecosystem functions of the Northern Forest.

Mark McAlpine | East Harbour Park Ranger
GREATER WELLINGTON REGIONAL COUNCIL