The current Government of New Zealand has taken aggressive steps to try and reduce the numbers of tahr “a valued introduced species” to under 10,000 animals with a proposed cull of 25,000 animals from the public land herd.
A herd population reduced to 10,000 is not enough animals to support the current amount of hunting from local and international hunters and will lead to an ultimate demise of the herd and the recreational and financial benefits that tahr generate for New Zealand.
What can you do to help? Follow the New Zealand Tahr Foundation on social media, sign their petition to ‘halt the cull and review the Himalayan Tahr Control Plan’. BUT the biggest thing you as hunters can do right now is book a hunt for a tahr in New Zealand, come and experience New Zealand’s beauty and majestic mountains which have been the home of our tahr since 1904. Support conservation through hunting as hunters have always done!
Support the tahr and the outfitters of the New Zealand Professional Hunting Guides Association (NZPHGA), especially those where tahr are an integral part of their lives and business. This is an incredible hunt right up there in the realms of the mountain goat and Sheep hunts of North America. How do we know this? Because many of our members have guided, assisted, or bought sheep hunts in North America.
After a successful High Court Injunction against the DOC (Department of Conservation), the Tahr Foundation, with the full support of the NZPHGA, has managed to reduce the number of animals to be killed by half (the helicopter culling hours being reduced from 260 hrs to 130). We as hunters need to keep the pressure on the DOC, and as the petition asks, have the current Act under which tahr are controlled revised (The NZPHGA much prefers the word managed rather than controlled). The correct science needs to be applied and will prove that the Southern Alps of New Zealand is capable of supporting a larger and sustainable population of tahr without having adverse effects on indigenous flora and fauna.
Book a hunt in New Zealand for our premier alpine animal the bull tahr. Our members offer a range of tahr hunting options. Many members of the NZPHGA have invested a great deal of time fighting for the tahr, book a tahr hunt, get your feet on the ground in the Southern Alps (as soon as the Covid-19 situation allows) and find out why our members are so passionate about this ‘valued introduced species’ which has made New Zealand its home.
