Stoush over exotic elk in national park breaks into the open
On a Thursday in February, at Wellington’s Conservation House, the Conservation Authority, a statutory body advising the eponymous department and minister, Tama Potaka, opened its 195th meeting.
Under consideration that afternoon was an agenda item written by Tim Bamford, chief advisor in the Department of Conservation’s biodiversity, heritage and visitors team, entitled: Determination of status of wapiti in Fiordland National Park.
The matter was in the public interest.
It involved an exotic species – wapiti, the largest of the country’s wild deer species, are North American elk, originally released in Fiordland in 1905 – living in a national park.
(Wapiti means “white rump” in the languages of the Cree or Shawnee North American indigenous peoples.)
The issue was also political.
During this past year’s general election campaign, the National Party promised – at the Deerstalkers’ Association conference – to not only appoint a Minister of Hunting and Fishing, but declare wapiti one of three “herds of special interest”.
The Conservation Authority, on the Department of Conservation’s (DoC) advice, was to consider Bamford’s paper behind closed doors.
“The reason this is being taken in-committee is because the department are bringing an issue to the NZCA for their consideration,” Rick McGovern-Wilson, the authority’s executive officer, explained to Newsroom before the meeting.
“The authority will not be making any decision on the day, but are likely to set up a committee to investigate and report back at a later meeting.
“We will not be releasing any material before the members have had the opportunity to receive it and discuss it.”
As it happens, the authority did discuss the issue in public, and released the report to Newsroom.
It paints a picture of an under-resourced department wanting to keep discussions of the wapiti situation on the quiet, as it’s relying on an organised and diligent community of hunters to essentially do its job, by culling deer to protect sensitive indigenous plants.
The trade-off is maintaining a trophy herd for hunters.
Bamford’s advice was prompted by a letter from conservation organisation Forest & Bird, which is the final attachment to his report.
Chief executive Nicola Toki wrote to then Conservation Minister Willow-Jean Prime last August, questioning the legality of wapiti management in Fiordland, and stating it was “considering its legal options”.
DoC’s response was to seek an exemption from the Conservation Authority – something Forest & Bird told the authority, in a follow-up letter in February, was “improper”, and an attempt to “retrospectively rectify a serious DoC error”.
Critics of the department would describe the situation as a continuation of a problematic culture within its operations arm, preferring relationships over following its statutory duties.
Meanwhile, Roy Sloan, president of the Fiordland Wapiti Foundation, says no one else seems to have the money or the will to cull deer and carry out conservation work in the rugged national park.
What’s the problem?
In her letter to Prime in August, Toki said it would be writing to UNESCO’s world heritage committee over concerns about the Crown’s management of browsing pests in Fiordland National Park, part of the Te Wāhipounamu world heritage area.
(It hasn’t done so yet, Forest & Bird confirms. Toki wasn’t available for an interview this week.)
Te Wāhipounamu covers 10 percent of New Zealand, and contains four national parks – the 1.2 million hectare Fiordland National Park, as well as Mt Aspiring, Mt Cook and Westland.
UNESCO’s website describes Te Wāhipounamu’s dramatic landscapes, carved by successive glaciations – fjords, rocky coasts, towering cliffs, lakes and waterfalls.
“As the largest and least modified area of New Zealand’s natural ecosystems, the flora and fauna has become the world’s best intact modern representation of the ancient biota of Gondwana.”
However, Toki accused the department of allowing “hunter-led game animal management” in the Fiordland National Park, despite the National Parks Act stipulating “introduced plants and animals shall as far as possible be exterminated”.
UNESCO already knows this isn’t happening.
Its website notes the impact invasive species are having on Te Wāhipounamu.
“Population increases of red deer as well as impacts from other browsing mammals such as wapiti, fallow deer, goat, chamois and tahr have caused severe damage in some parts of the property, in particular threatening the integrity of the forest and alpine ecosystems.”
The public, too, has had a glimpse of this hunter-led game animal management.
Work by the Fiordland Wapiti Foundation, a registered charity, was featured on TVNZ’s prime-time show Country Calendar in June this past year, and, earlier this month, in an article by The Press.
In the newspaper story, DoC’s Te Anau operations manager John Lucas said pest and predator control work was “undertaken in less than half the park” because of financial constraints and geographical challenges.
Hence its agreement with the foundation, which was signed in 2011, and re-signed two years ago.
DoC valued the arrangement, Lucas said, under which the foundation did an annual deer cull, trapped stoats and rats, and carried out back country hut maintenance. The work is funded by hunters.
The foundation also commercially harvests meat, selling it to restaurants, something Forest & Bird’s Toki said in her letter to Prime was “akin to farming in the national park”.
Such a practice is in direct conflict with the park’s management plan, she said, the purpose of the world heritage area, and sections of the National Parks Act, Conservation Act, and the Game Animal Council Act.
The situation is an abdication of DoC’s job and must stop, immediately, Toki said.
Fiordland’s wapiti problem isn’t just political, Toki told Prime, it’s also legally perilous.
“Forest & Bird is considering its legal options for ensuring that the Crown complies with all its legal obligations to control browsing pests.”
Given Forest & Bird’s threat, it’s no wonder DoC, and the Conservation Authority, initially at least, wanted to keep its discussions under wraps.
However, authority members did discuss the sensitive matter in public at its meeting in Wellington on February 22, McGovern-Wilson says, after which the issue was parked.
“They have gone back to the department with some legal questions.”
Bamford’s paper shows DoC wants a carve-out for its agreement with the Fiordland Wapiti Foundation. Under the National Parks Act, the authority has the power to give one, if a proposal is of national significance. (But only if such an exemption is consistent with preserving the park in its natural state.)
“The proposal has national significance,” Bamford wrote.
“While the [national park management plan] only applies regionally (i.e. to the park), given the national (and international) significance of the Park, the national significance of the wapiti herd to hunters throughout New Zealand, and the potential consequences for hunting of the herd and health of biodiversity in the area if a determination is not made, mean there is a reasonable basis upon which the authority can consider the matter outside the standard process.”
DoC asked the authority to initiate a special process for determining an exemption for managing wapiti. In the suggested four-month timeframe, the department would “tighten” its arrangement with the foundation, to ensure it is “appropriately authorised”.
“DoC would not be prioritising deer control in the wapiti area other than by working with the foundation.”
Tim Bamford, DoC chief advisor in the biodiversity, heritage and visitors team
However, there were obvious problems.
The annual animal control plan for wapiti “expressly contemplates maintaining a trophy herd of wapiti to create hunting opportunities”.
Indeed, the foundation’s charitable purpose is: “To educate and promote public awareness of the value of managing trophy hunting in New Zealand as a self-funding wild animal resource providing of itself funds to help finance animal control and conservation recovery programmes for the long term.”
Clearly that jars with the National Parks Act’s requirement of exterminating exotic species “as far as possible”. But Bamford seemed to justify the agreement because of the conservation benefits.
“DoC’s arrangement with the foundation aims to achieve a level of deer control within the wapiti area that allows for the regeneration of browsed indigenous flora.”
(The so-called wapiti area covers about 175,000 hectares of the national park, which hunters can access through a ballot system. Between March 20 and April 28, 600 hunters will descend on the wapiti area’s 25 blocks, with the money raised going towards the foundation’s conservation and culling work.)
Another problem is the full extent of the foundation’s commercial arrangements for selling meat, which would normally require a concession, isn’t contained in its agreement with DoC.
An exemption by the authority for wapiti management would simply endorse the status quo, so Bamford suggested input on its determination be restricted to Ngāi Tahu, Forest & Bird, Southland Conservation Board, and the Fiordland Wapiti Foundation.
DoC’s director of national programmes Dr Ben Reddiex says: “At this stage in the process, we consider clarifying how the current arrangements align with legislative obligations is an internal matter, rather than a public process.”
There wasn’t a need to hold a hearing, Bamford advised the authority, although it “may decide to do so”,
His paper raised the prospect of Hunting and Fishing Minister McClay designating wapiti a herd of special interest. However, without a determination by the authority the designation’s management plan “could only manage the herd with a view to exterminating or eradicating it from the park, as far as possible”.
(The Game Animal Council Act says the designation would allow the Minister to “authorise or carry out operations for managing and controlling the size of the population, including the payment of bounties, grants, or subsidies”. But the decision must be consistent with “overriding considerations” contained in various plans and policies, and “the welfare and management of public conservation and resources generally”.)
Culling wapiti isn’t a high departmental priority.
Bamford said there were 453 sites for deer and goat management across the country, and the wapiti area was ranked 86th. “DoC would not be prioritising deer control in the wapiti area other than by working with the foundation.”
DoC sets annual deer harvest targets for the foundation, which are reviewed at the end of each year based on the monitoring of deer impacts on vegetation. If browsing of native plants increases, so do the targets.
(The target in 2023/24 was a minimum of 1000 animals.)
The foundation also manages a hunting ballot, predator control, and hut maintenance, which is specified in an annual animal control plan. It pays for this through its annual wapiti ballot, branding, sponsorship, and donations from the sale of venison.
“The arrangement has enabled the sustained control of deer within the wapiti area,” the paper to the authority said.
Is it a quid pro quo? No, Bamford suggested. “Regardless of the benefits of the foundation’s work, it is crucial public conservation lands and waters are managed in accordance with overarching legislation and statutory plans.”
However, DoC’s pragmatism – possibly illegal, according to Forest & Bird – is clear from its agreement with the Wapiti Foundation.
In 2008, in response to the foundation’s proposal to manage deer in the wapiti area, DoC advised a concession should be sought. “However, as the nature of what was being proposed was considered as being to carry out the functions of DoC, DoC and the foundation ultimately entered into a ‘community agreement’,” a departmental background document, summarising the agreement, said.
Bamford wrote: “DoC understands that the foundation is willing to do culling work on the basis that it is allowed to keep some number of deer for hunting purposes.”
That compromise isn’t acceptable to Forest & Bird. “The fact that the ‘more sustainable harvesting regime’ is ‘free to the taxpayer’ is irrelevant,” Toki, the chief executive, said in her letter to Conservation Authority chair Edward Ellison in February.
DoC just doesn’t have the resources to cull wild animals in the wapiti ara, and it’s not a priority. Bamford mulled if this could be an argument to say its agreement with the foundation was, in practice, the department exterminating wapiti “as far as possible”.
But that’s not certain – and to clear it up, DoC wants the authority to consider making a limited exception.
The department’s in a tricky position.
Without a determination from the authority, its arrangement with the foundation is at risk of legal challenge. But without the foundation’s wild animal control, and conservation work, there would be further damage to the national park’s biodiversity and recreation values.
“I think they’ve earned the right to be there.”
Roy Sloan, Fiordland Wapiti Foundation
The history of wapiti is fascinating.
Eighteen animals were released at the head of George Sound, in Fiordland, in March 1905, in the hope of establishing a trophy hunting herd. Ten of the animals were a gift from United States’ president Theodore Roosevelt – the rest were bought by the government.
“We think they’ve got a place in there,” says Roy Sloan, president of the Fiordland Wapiti Foundation. “They’ve been there for over 100 years now. We certainly think they’re part of the Fiordland landscape.”
The foundation started culling deer in the national park in 2005.
Sloan: “We saw an opportunity where the deer in the wapiti area were getting out of control and we took it upon ourselves to implement some kind of control.”
Over the past 10 years, under the committee headed by Sloan, the foundation has relied more on data and science. It has sought advice from Crown research institute Manaaki Whenua/Landcare Research, and biologist and predator control specialist Cam Speedy, who is secretary of the Sika Foundation, which seeks to improve hunter access to that species of deer.
The Wapiti Foundation maintains more than 460 stoat traps in the national park, to protect takahe.
Its deer culling operations have become more strategic, culling more hinds (females), and letting young stags (males) grow to maturity.
The undated DoC background document, attached to Bamford’s report, which summarises its agreement with the foundation, said controlling deer in forests was difficult to achieve and expensive.
“For this reason, the department currently only delivers this in the Murchison Mountains to protect takahe habitat and floristic values.”
Sloan says he respects Forest & Bird’s work but wants to put its arguments to one side, and focus on its own work.
“Ideology is really not solving our deer problems.”
He says the foundation has provided double the amount of deer management in the wapiti area, measured in deer numbers per square hectare, than other parts of the Fiordland National Park.
“And over the last five years we’ve tripled it.”
That’s one measure of success.
However, a DoC analysis suggests this might be because of the sheer weight of deer numbers. Manaaki Whenua, contracted jointly by the department and the foundation, found browse on selected alpine species was higher in the wapiti area, compared to other areas of the national park.
As a result, required harvest numbers were increased by several hundred animals.
Sloan says the National Parks Act, enacted in 1980, is outdated, and claims the mandate to exterminate animals has saved more deer, or introduced animals, than it has killed. He throws shade at the policy-makers – people who sit in offices, meeting rooms, and around desks – while deer numbers continue to increased.
Is that a reflection of flawed legislation, or a lack of resources? (Resources that will shrink further under proposed budget cuts, as part of the Government’s mandate for the public service to reduce costs.)
Whatever the case, Sloan’s statement doesn’t quite stack up.
Sustained commercial venison recovery by helicopter between 1969 and 1984 reduced wild animal density in the wapiti area by about 80 percent. Deer densities above the timber line were “near zero”.
The management regime continued until 2001, when concerns over possible poison contamination halted commercial recovery for several years. A more recent factor in increased deer numbers was the disruption caused by Covid-19 lockdowns.
The DoC background document said hunters were observing “larger numbers of trophy animals”.
Animal surveys are difficult, expensive and sometimes inaccurate, but Sloan believes there are about 3500 wild animals, including elk, in the wapiti area.
As long as animal numbers are kept to “minimal” levels, and vegetation monitoring says the park’s “doing OK”, he says there should be a place for wapiti in Fiordland.
“We’re managing the impacts the deer have where no one else has, or seems to have the money or the will to do it.”
DoC tacitly admits this is the case: “It is currently not a priority for DOC to pick up the predator and deer control activities if the agreement [with the foundation] was to cease.”
The background document said the department took a “pragmatic” middle line between what conservationists want – zero or very low deer numbers – and the demands of hunters, with higher deer numbers and “less healthy vegetation”. This enables “high-quality trophies” to be produced.
According to DoC, the foundation understands its privileged position of having high-quality trophy animals in a national park, while maintaining healthy vegetation.
“Whether this can truly be achieved is debatable,” the background document said, “and can only be informed by data and adaptive management, which is what DoC is doing currently (within current resourcing constraints).”
Sloan hopes wapiti can be deemed a herd of special interest so its work can continue. “That’s probably the way forward for us at this stage.”
Newsroom suggests the National Party’s policy wasn’t an accident, surely, and asks about the foundation’s pre-election lobbying, and if Sloan has talked to Minister McClay since the election.
“We’ve always known that someday, somebody is going to challenge what we do in Fiordland National Park,” Sloan says. “We said then that the best thing we can do is achieve all our goals and objectives that we set for the area.”
It wants the foundation’s story over the past 18 years to speak for itself, he says.
“Certainly we’ve spoken to the Government, and certainly we are pushing for a herd special interest.”
DoC is “absolutely” supportive of the foundation’s activities, Sloan says.
A month ago, the department’s director-general Penny Nelson posted on LinkedIn about spending the weekend with the Wapiti and Sika foundations “to see a recreational hunt first-hand”.
(Photos were taken by Ben Reddiex, DoC’s director of national programmes.)
“There’s a huge opportunity to work in a coordinated way with commercial and recreational hunters to ensure that animals can still be recovered, but also to dramatically improve ecosystem health,” Nelson wrote.
Says Sloan: “We flew Penny in and had a look around what we do, and she’s been understanding of that. And certainly, like everybody you put in a helicopter they get overwhelmed by the size of the place.”
The country has changed immensely since wapiti were released in 1905, he says.
“We understand that they’ve got to be kept in low numbers. But as a hunter … I think they’ve earned the right to be there.”
What happens now?
DoC manager Reddiex parrots Bamford’s report, saying the department is focused on ensuring public conservation land is managed in accordance with legislation.
“It is sensible to clarify the scope of DoC and the Foundation’s activities and ensure that they align with relevant obligations. DoC is working with the Fiordland Wapiti Foundation to ensure that activities undertaken by the foundation are appropriately authorised.”
McGovern-Wilson, the Conservation Authority’s executive officer, says once it receives the response to its legal questions it will hold a “virtual out-of-cycle meeting”.
Meanwhile, a clock is ticking on the Government’s plans.
The office of Todd McClay, the Minister for Hunting and Fishing, says he intends to progress three herds of special interest in this parliamentary term – as promised, pre-election.
“These three herds include wapiti, and he is receiving advice about how to progress this.”
That is, if Forest & Bird doesn’t jump in with a legal challenge first.
