Sieze game bird opportunities, says Fish & Game

Sieze game bird opportunities, says Fish & Game

Don’t give up on game bird hunting just yet…there’s plenty of scope.

That’s the message to hunters from Eastern Fish & Game officers.

Senior Eastern Fish & Game officer Mathew Mc Dougall says there are weeks left to hunt a variety of game birds including pheasant and pukeko – even though the mallard duck season is now closed.

The seasons for grey and mallard ducks ended earlier this month (June) in the Auckland-Waikato and Eastern Fish & Game regions, but upland game birds can be hunted in most areas until August 25, along with pukeko and black swan.

Mr Mc Dougall says hunters are urged to seize the “plentiful opportunities” to hunt a variety of birds – to get full value from their hunting licence.

He says that some of New Zealand’s best pheasant and quail hunting is found in the Eastern Region, and various iwi have generously provided continued access to places like Rotoehu and Kaingaroa forests, in the wake of Treaty of Waitangi settlements.

“Cock pheasants can be hunted until August 25 in most areas but please check the regulations which apply to the spots you intend to hunt.”

He says there are reports of healthy pheasant numbers in other areas, noting that, “generally when ducks find it hard, pheasants do well.”

Mr Mc Dougall says Fish & Game also encourages hunters to target other birds including black swan – in both Lake Rotorua where there usually 600 to 800 birds, and Tauranga Harbour. “The well-publicised black swan hunt there wasn’t as successful as we’d have hoped with numbers of birds climbing into the thousands.”

Hunters are urged to put pukeko on their list as well – a bird which continues to cause problems in a number of areas. Fish & Game has again fielded complaints from mainly Tauranga residents where a number of subdivisions have been built around the harbour on former wetlands. “Pukeko are turning up in people’s backyards where they damage gardens and poop on their drives and lawns. It’s really more a case of people turning up in the pukekos’ back yard – the wetlands,” he adds.

Mr Mc Dougall acknowledges that the mallard season in the North Island turned out to be a tough one, just as Fish & Game had predicted. But he says most hunters realised their skills weren’t to blame and they were all in the same boat, “which made them a little happier.”

He says the short mallard season permitted should have a positive flow-on effect in terms of the numbers of birds which survived into the breeding season, “to hopefully get us out of the dip we’re in at the moment.”

Mr Mc Dougall is appealing to hunters who haven’t returned the bands taken from mallards they shot during the season to return them – as they provide crucial information on population numbers. “The more we get in the more accurate we can be, and the more liberal we can be with season regulations.”

Banding, which normally begins in early January, is only one element of the population monitoring work which includes aerial observations. Banding is used to find out survival rates for juveniles and adults, males and females.

The recovery of a band also means the distance between a banding site and recovery site can be calculated, as can the time elapsed since banding - giving an indication on how long the bird lived for. One interesting recovery this year was a mallard banded in February 2004 as a juvenile, which was shot Culverden just north of Christchurch, 632km from where it had been banded.

Hunters are asked to either send their bands in or phone the 0800 number
(0800-434-742) with their harvest information.

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