Deer Wars - Daring and Dangerous

Reporter

New RNZ podcast Deer Wars explores an era before workplace health and safety, when the battle against the exploding population of invasive environmental pest — the red deer — became a 'wild west' industry where lives were lost and fortunes made, all before breakfast.

Episode 2 explores the 1950s and a culling strategy that isn’t working. Image supplied.

Deer Wars tells the story of the hard-knock men and women making a living in the New Zealand bush, and the 50-year struggle to control New Zealand's red deer population.

Numbering in their millions, the deer were causing serious and escalating damage in the backcountry. The estimated two million deer shot by ground cullers made little impact. It took the arrival of helicopters with deadly shooters onboard and then a dramatic switch to live capture to get the numbers down.

Each period brought its challenges — from isolation, food shortages, and a lack of huts, bridges or communications for the ground cullers, to the daring and dangerous efforts to shoot deer from the air. The risks were huge – it was all learning on the job - and resulted in many crashes and accidents, deaths and injuries. The move to live capture doubled the danger and risk but also the profits.

Episode 5 - Shooting deer from choppers may be a game changer, but everyone is learning from scratch. Image supplied.

Producer and presenter Paul Roy makes his first foray into podcasts after a long career in film and television, including making two television documentaries on the topic.  He says Deer Wars us a unique Kiwi story.

"Times were generally simpler then and what few rules and red tape existed, were commonly ignored," Roy says.

Paul Roy, producer for Deer Wars. Image supplied.

"Although deer culling started as a response to a purely environmental problem – it didn’t hurt that for some, big bucks could be made in the process. And with big bucks came big risks.

“Over the last 15 years I’ve been lucky enough to interview well over 100 people who witnessed the rise and fall of the deer culling industry from the 1930s through to the eighties. To this day, the red deer is the most widespread deer species in New Zealand.”

Deer Wars is a unique and compelling story told by those who lived it. 

The podcast launches on Friday 20 October with a new episode every Friday and Wednesday. Listen at rnz.co.nz/deer-wars or your favourite podcast platform or listen to the above.

You also might like