Tahr Jam attracts 1000-strong crowd protesting DOC cull plan
stuff.co.nz/timaru-herald/news/122178036/tahr...
stuff.co.nzPosted Jul 20, 2020, 2:12 AM UTC
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stuff.co.nzDOC operations director Dr Ben Reddiex said thousands of bull tahr and other tahr will be left for trophy hunters across 425,000ha of public conservation land, but in the 148,000ha national parks, New Zealand’s native species needed to come first.
That cull plan is reducing the area Tahr are in by 25% to protect native flora. What a bunch of self absorbed tosspots these hunters are.
73
Honestly, they should be grateful anything will be left for them at all... entitled fuckers.
10
With the population at 30,000 and DOC's aim being a stable population of 10,000 it is a little obfuscatory to say the proposed cull is "25% in the area."
But yea, still tosspots.
8†
The only stable population is 0. Eradicate them all. Soil erosion due to large mammals is a huge issue in New Zealand. Pigs and deer especially. They dig up the ground, step on young plants, and destroy the forest under-canopy.
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To put those number in proportion: there are 3000-5000 kea left in the alps.
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A stable population of 10,000
How terrifying
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I'm not saying it's a bad thing, I'm just saying that their description of the cull was obfuscatory.
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“Reducing the area Tahr are in by 25%” refers to the the territory, not the actual numbers of Tahr, you’ve misinterpreted what was said when you quote “25% in the area”
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alt headline: 1000 attention seekers who've utterly failed to control the tahr population like they've said they would turn up to protest environmental protections that are necessary because of their failures.
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Fucking hell, what is wrong with these people. What's the bet there is a high crossover between these folks, anti-1080/brodifacoum, anti-vaxxers and other nutjobs in general? Tahr are just one of the dozens of pests we've introduced into this country that need to be eradicated entirely.
“We wanted a big visual statement to say to the rest of New Zealand that we’re not going to let this lifestyle [hunting] be taken away from us,” Tahr Jam co-organiser Kelvin Williams told Stuff.
Sorry Kelvin (presumably a male Karen), but your lifestyle is not as important as our entire country's biodiversity. These rednecks need something better to do.
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Love watching your hunting show but Jeeeez Willey, you sound like you're clutching at straws here.
You're basically saying that DOC doing their job to protect NZ native flora and fauna is not as important as you and your mates exploiting public land to provide for your private interests.
On your show you yourselves ignore most animals in favour of prize bulls only, which you somehow claim is managing the herd - why don't you shoot a few females at the same time if you really want to manage the population?
You yourselves only take out the back-strips and maybe a leg so are as guilty as DOC of leaving carcasses behind.
Please stick to the show and let DOC do their job to protect the high country for all New Zealanders, eh?
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Whilst I'm not sure on where you are coming from on the 1080 point ...
I do tend to think some hunters like to see themselves as a special breed of snowflakes who should get special treatment to others.
Level 4 Covid restrictions and a vocal group advocating that they should be allowed to go and hunt comes to mind.
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Whilst I'm not sure on where you are coming from on the 1080 point ...
What I'm getting at is that there's probably a significant common pool of people who will take issue with 1080 poison drops to control pests in our native forest—often for feigned (and unscientific) reasons about 1080 poisoning people when it's in water, killing birdlife, etc—and will also take issue with DOC tahr and deer culls.
Walk past all the dirty utes they drive and you'll see more than a few "fuck 1080" stickers, I bet.
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I don't know, looks like there is a lot of science that shows 1080 can spread quite easily through water. I guess it's at what points of it breaking down it's consumed as to how lethal it is.
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You have it backwards: Sodium Fluoroacetate is incredibly soluble in water, like you say. However, the effect is the opposite. Because of this, it becomes dilute and indetectable even in trace quantities extremely rapidly—you could drink out of a stream that had been specifically baited with 1080 twelve hours beforehand and would be fine. There's probably more dangerous heavy metals and chemicals in city water that is travelling through 100 year old pipes.
(In reality, 1080 drops specifically avoid streams where possible).
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One of the points for 1080 is that it can spread through water and dissipate through dilution and therefore be close to harmless in streams and rivers.
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There is zero evidence that 1080 spreads in water. In fact it breaks down very quickly in water to the point where you'll only get a positive result for 1080 if you test immediately downstream of a pellet that is in the water. Unless you've got a source the NZ scientific community is currently unaware of?
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Where is this science you speak of? I have only seen the opposite.
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“There’s no reason we can’t have healthy native vegetation and a sustainable tahr population.”
Apart from the massive environmental damage that they cause. But that's lost on these fuckwits.
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lmao these fuckwits were given the job of maintaining a sustainable tahr population and fucked it up.
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lmao these fuckwits were given the job of maintaining a sustainable tahr population and fucked it up.
One would have to wonder if they actually intended to keep the numbers down at all.
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Judging by the previous pearl-clutching and general entitlement from this group, absolutely not.
It's like the hunters who oppose the use of 1080: ultimately they want to keep up their hobby at the expense of everyone else.
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It's sad how people will go all out to "maintain a sustainable number" of tahr, but we can't do the same for maui dolphins, for example
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If these hunters got their jollies off shooting at dolphins they'd be all for it, but they only care about protecting their hobby not the environment.
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i think that's more to do with the fact that industrial fishing is horrifically destructive and wasteful
3
After a decade and a shitload of fleece, I've stopped spending thousands of dollars on Swazi gear as they have been spamming my email with garbage about supporting this and they donated 10k to the cause of keeping invasive species alive, fuckers.
I know there aren't many non hunters who buy Swazi but I'm switching to stoney creek for now.
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Hey, good to know about Swazi, at least. Thanks for the heads up.
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[deleted]
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"Hey Good_Local
This morning Swazi donated 6 Tahr Anoraks to raffle off with all proceeds going to the NZ Tahr Foundation, those raffles tickets were snapped up so quickly, it kinda blew our minds.
After some pleading with Cath the Swazi Minister of Finance, we managed to snag a couple of more jackets and once more, those tickets sold pretty damn quick.
We're thrilled to see how passionate the Clan are to support such an important cause. If you missed out on winning a Tahr, we would still encourage you to donate and sign the petition.
Thank you to everyone who purchased a ticket, here are our winners.
Raffle 1 - Tahr XP - Mike Thrupp Raffle 2 - Tahr Ultrlite - Mary Marr Raffle 3 - Tahr XP - Hamish McNair Raffle 4 - Tahr Ultralite - Micheal Willoughby Raffle 5 - Tahr XP - Kyle Osten Raffle 6 - Tahr Ultralie - Peter Lindsay Raffle 7 - Tahr XP - Sean Kerins Raffle 8 - Tahr Ultralite - Nate Rae
8 raffles, 8 excellent results and $10,000 for the NZ Tahr Foundation.
We appreciate the hell out of the Swazi Clan.
Kia Kaha"
I don't make threads usually but there is one of the two emails if anyone cares. The other is a plea from the founder of Swazi, asking for support for the cause. It's a really bad taste letter with personal attacks and a large sense of entitlement included;
"Swazi Founder, Davey Hughes is a keen Tahr hunter who has just returned from the Southern Alps on his most recent Tahr hunt. He had this to say about the latest developments
“As I flew out of the Westland Tai Poutini National Park last week after 7 days of tahr and chamois hunting, the very last thing I expected to be confronted by was the news that Eugenie Sage had instructed the Department of Conservation to eradicate bull Tahr from the Park. The news was devastating. Afterall, recreational hunters over the previous couple of years had helped manage Tahr numbers down by some 18,000 animals. It showed collaboration with DOC across all levels. Now the Minister has run roughshod over her own staff and demanded they begin a total eradication. No wonder moral within the Department is at an all time low. No wonder hunters are so angry.
Anger and speaking out in public, however, does not change the minds of rogue Ministers. The law does. It’s time to fight. We must go early and we must go hard. (Big thanks to our PM for adding those words) The cost of this fight will be high, but the cost of not fighting will be even higher, that is, losing tahr in the mountains of Aotearoa.
Please help with this fight. At Swazi we’ve donated 6 award winning Tahr rain jackets as raffle prizes towards raising funds. 100% of the money will go to the Tahr Foundation, to assist with the looming court case.
It’s our cause. Our court case. Our chance to stand up for what is right.
Thank you for your support.”
Davey Hughes Levin"
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Glad I didn't get stuck in that jam. 52km so turns a ~30 minute trip into nearly 2 hours.
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I'd shoot all the Tahr. Ah the old hunter myth "Hunters are keeping the numbers under control"
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They were on the news and the two talking points (seperate broadcasts) were: every tahr is worth $40,000 (I assume they mean per bull? Ram? Dude goat anyway) for a hunter. And, that they need this for their mental health.
Not they need to get out in the outdoors and see the sweetly growing native grass, they need to kill animals. Right. Saying “Mental health” is not a magic spell to get to do what you want guys.
Eradicate them!
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I wonder to myself, is there something wrong with these people, or is there something with with me. Do I have to march for this, protest? Do I really? And if I do then fuck, when else must I take to the streets? "libraries should have books"; "cars shouldn't be driven on the footpath". To me it's just so obvious but these idiotic groups get so much attention.
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Who did the head count ?
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When do we start to hear about the need to eradicate cats with the same vigour you are all suggesting for the tahr. The are scientific papers from all over the world that show the damage they cause. The local papers suggest that the only reasons that many of our main centres don't have self sufficient populations of native birds are cats.
How about pine trees? One of the biggest issues for our native bush, but we are currently being encouraged to plant more of them. Wasps are absolution devastating the native insects and birds in wide parts of country. Both these should be getting eradicated by the same logic.
But at the same time if we eradicate all introduced pests from new Zealand we can never return to native pristine forest. It's simply not possible as many animals and plants are long gone.
As new zealanders we are proud of our native bush, but seem to neglect the bush is only in the roughest parts of the country where it's in economical to farm. These areas make up huge swath of our native flora of much the same biodiversity.
If we really want to protect and encourage biodiversity of native bush we should be looking at opening up low land areas to native bush. Where I native birds don't need to freeze every winter. Instead we get in a frenzy about tahr and anecdotal evidence of some damage in some areas of a small part of high country, and plant our much needed low land bush areas in pine forest.
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There are suburbs that are cat free, there are groups sterilising cats so they don't breed, there are groups building fences to keep cats out. Vote TOP if you want cats exterminated.
There are farms fighting against pine trees. What are you talking about, people are fighting these things. Hell, just last week there was a carbon law going through parliment that farmers were fighting, there has been tv adds about tree farmers ringbarking trees to kill them and how we need to protest.
Most farmers aren't planting pines, they are planting natives around their waterways. (because pines are a stupid choice)
Seriously, are you that out of touch? Are you even involved in any of these groups you are protesting are unloved?
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You can support the eradication of tahr, cats, pine trees, wasps all at once without posting it in a tahr related thread.
Just because this thread exists and people are passionate doesnt mean they don't agree with you, its just not the topic of the thread..
Your username suggests a strong bias either way.
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The amount of people who are anti endangered species is truly sad.
The arrogance of DOC who refuse to adequately consult relevant parties is hardly surprising
To waste tax payers money destroying a valuable resource just shows that the current govt hates ordinary kiwis.
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This species is only endangered in the Himalayas.
It’s wide spread and a pest here and in the US.
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That's only your opinion. These are valuable game animals and should be managed as such
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Then the hunters should have done what they said they would and reduce the population down to 10,000 which they didn't...
This has forced DOC to intervene.
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Hunters never said that they'd reduce the population to 10000. They've already shot plenty.
Doc have an extermination agenda and always have.
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The amount of people who are anti endangered species is truly sad.
The truly sad thing is the amount of entitled people who want to protect an introduced pest.
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That's your opinion. Animals are much more important than a bit of grass anyway
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That's your opinion.
No, that's the opinion of most ecologists. And environmentalists.
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And what do they know about endangered animals?
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Why is there so much anti hunting sentiment in this subreddit?
I'm a bleeding heart liberal like a lot of people here, but also support hunting and partake occasionally (wish I did more but have other priorities).
Why do we have to be so incredibly divisive? It doesn't help come to sensible agreements.
I'm not strongly taking a side in this debate due to not knowing the specifics, although I think in conservation areas conservation should be the priority, but there should be some provision to maintain hunting.
Just think about the alternative perspective for a minute. There's people who live a whole lifestyle around hunting, and for them it feels like that's being eroded or attacked.
Screaming and shouting about people being idiots isn't going to get us any closer to the empathetic and prosperous society a lot of us here want.
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There's people who live a whole lifestyle around hunting, and for them it feels like that's being eroded or attacked.
And there's people who have a whole lifestyle around driving Audis and Range Rovers that guzzle gas and contribute to climate change. They have to change their ways too.
Tahr are not part of New Zealand's native flora and fauna. Conservation areas aren't your backyard to partake in your shooting hobby. They're not even designed for walking (see: closed tracks to prevent Kauri dieback). They're about conserving New Zealand's endemic species and environment. Maintaining a stable population of 10,000 tahr is irreconcilable with that goal.
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Two things to think about:
Is shouting that they're idiots likely to incentivise a change in lifestyle?
Is it really comparable? Allowing some areas for tahr hunting obviously impacts conservation values, but not to the extent that climate change impacts civilisation and nature.
But as I said I don't really want to debate the specifics, I just want to understand why there seems to be a lot of hate for hunters as if they're all one type of person.
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Is shouting that they're idiots likely to incentivise a change in lifestyle?
These people aren't going to change their opinion just because I'm telling them either nicely, or rudely—one way or the other—that their hobby is antithetical with the goals of conservation. They can't even keep up their own promises of maintaining the Tahr population so DOC had to come in and do it for them.
So the only thing I can do is be a strong force for the other side of the argument and petition DOC to do the most damage they can to the Tahr population. Hunters get their voice, I get mine.
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Hunters said they were going to control the Tahr population. They only took bulls and trophy winners, so the population exploded. Doc then came along and said "Since you dipshits failed to control the population like YOU SAID YOU WOULD we're going to have to cull them to levels conducive to the actual conservation of native flora and fauna"
These entitled shits are damaging NZ's environment for their *hobby*, refuse to do anything about it AND kick and scream when DOC has to come in and fix their fuckin' mess.
There's the specifics for you.
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OK, so why couldn't you just say that you feel the hunters have failed to follow through on their preferred control measures, so DOC should be able to revert to plan B and cull them?
It's possible to speak without vitriol.
My main point is that if this is how people choose to engage with people they don't agree with, we won't get very far. Have we learned nothing from Jacinda's approach of understanding and empathy?
Down votes just reinforce my point, so go ahead
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because i'm not about to mince words with these idiots who are protesting something that is literally a result of their own actions, and which if nothing is done about will further erode the environment in a country I quite enjoy living in.
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People are allowed to vent on fucking reddit.
And this isn't even engaging with them at all. It's talking about them, not to them.
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All the comments seem to be talking about this particular group of fuckwits, I don't see any attacks on hunters in general.
Screaming and shouting about people being idiots isn't going to get us any closer to the empathetic and prosperous society a lot of us here want.
Sure it will. Don't need to tolerate the intolerant. Public opposition to their fuckwittery is important to stop the loud idiots fucking things for the rest of us.
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I agree with everything you said up to the last point.
All I'm trying to say is that this subreddit often resorts to calling people fuckwits or the like if they don't share the majority view, and that's not super constructive.
It just furthers the echo chamber because if someone who was open to debate came on here, they'd instantly be put off any meaningful discussion by the insults.
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I think you'll find this sub is actually in favour of hunting tahr, I mean this cull is just a massive hunt and I'm certainly for it, it actually doesn't go far enough.
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No one is saying don't hunt, just don't need more than you could ever hunt that then fuck with the environment.
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This is dumb as shit, Tahr are an invasive pest and need to be culled.
Dont worry, stick to playing video games and let the grown ups worry about it
I'll do both, thanks for the concern though.
No clearly leaving it to the ‘grown ups’ doesn’t work, hence the cull. You could just stick to the codies.