Big game hunting in New Zealand: per capita effort, harvest and expenditure in 2011–2012

Abstract

Recreational big game hunters make a significant contribution to conservation through kills of deer, pigs, chamois and tahr. New opportunities for managing recreational hunting through the proposed Game Animal Council underscore the need to understand the implications of potential changes in recreational hunting participation and harvests. Based on a survey of hunters' recall over a year, hunters averaged 15.63 (SEM = 0.58) big game hunts per year, spending 30.53 (SEM = 0.85) days hunting and killing 8.92 (SEM = 0.69) big game animals. Hunters commonly targeted several species on a single hunt, with highly skewed distributions for hunter effort and kills. Mean monthly expenditure on big game hunting items was $296.78 (SEM = $8.95). Results demonstrate that big game hunting is a significant activity in New Zealand, but this varies considerably among hunters with a small number responsible for the vast majority of kills. These are important considerations for future big game hunting management.

Keywords:

• hunting
• big game
• New Zealand
• effort
• harvest
• expenditure

Acknowledgements

This study benefited immensely from the expert knowledge of numerous hunters and hunting administrators who guided design of, and participated in pretesting of, the surveys. Their patience and careful scrutiny resulted in significant improvements in the surveys. In particular, we are grateful for assistance from Garry Ottmann and Graham Nugent. The surveys were approved by the Lincoln University Human Ethics Committee. Brent Beaven from the DOC was extremely supportive, and facilitated advertising the surveys on the DOC website. This research would not have been possible without the generous support of the editors of the national hunting magazines (Hooked on Boars, More-Pork, NZ Guns & Hunting, NZ Hunter, NZ Hunting & Wildlife, NZ Outdoor Hunting, NZ Pig Hunter, NZ Rod & Rifle), all of whom provided free advertising space and, in some cases, editorial support. We are grateful for constructive comments from a referee and the associate editor.