Presidents Report 2017
Another great year for the Southern Lakes Branch with its membership continuing to grow at each meeting. We encourage networking over a beer before each meet which has resulted in members making new friends and going hunting with each other. This year has also seen a lot of ‘First Deer Shot’ which is great news that new or old members are heading out and getting amongst it!
A lot of work has also been done at National and Club Level, in conjunction with scientific studies by one of our members (Kaylyn) on deer in the local area and we successfully campaigned for deer repellent to be added to the 1080 drop which was in the area populated by the White Tail deer herd. Until the GAC are able to make this a “herd of special interest”, a ‘White Tail deer’ Sub committee has been formed to work towards educating hunters here and overseas that this herd is under intense hunting pressure. If not managed or protected, we fear there will not be a herd for much longer. So a website is being developed for education and information purposes and we are working with DOC to limit hunting during certain times to allow the deer to breed before being shot. Our ultimate aim is to get the Whitetail made a herd of special interest and managed much like the Wapiti are. We have 2 Southern Lakes delegates attending conference this year if you want to know more please go chat to them.
We also championed for deer repellent on the 1080 in the Caples Valley which is a RHA and were successful in that too.
As a follow up on the 1080 drop, and to ascertain the success or not of the repellent, a couple of long days saw many volunteer hours doing grid searches in the drop zones. A couple of dead deer were found so waiting for toxicology reports to come back to confirm if 1080 was the cause.
A lot of great speakers came along to our meetings this year including Stager Sports, KUIU, Skin and Tanning Specialists, and one of our life time members Eon showing us some amazing slides from when he was growing up and tramping around the South Island
A lot of work has been done to try and locate an area suitable for a gun range.
We are 60% there with lots more admin work to go before we can even start to construct it, but a huge thanks must go to everyone who has been working on this for the past 12 months and more.
We have tirelessly cooked burgers as fundraisers at both the local A&P show and the Winter Festival for the past few years so that we can eventually afford the costs associated with setting up a gun range. It will be a very exciting time ahead after all the fundraising for the club, if everything goes to plan.
Our club huts in the Greenstone and Caples continue to do well after our successful grant and upgrade in 2015 and they have proved to be very popular to hunters, fishermen and hikers so if you haven’t visited one of these, why not apply for the ballot or plan a fishing trip and come and spend a night or two in the facilities, of course discounted for members!
We manage a stoat trap run in the Steele Creek RHA and recently added the data to a free website used by other similar groups on www.trap.nz which has meant DOC and the other local “preditor free” action groups can see our progress and results.
We have organised a number of club hunting trips (wallaby shoot, hare control, Fiordland hunting weekend etc) and had competition shoots at neighbouring clubs with more planned over the next year. These have been a great opportunity for members to get to know others and learn new skills.
We continue to run two HUNTS courses a year, and although we would love to run more, they demand a lot of time so a huge thanks to Pete and Paul for their hard work with these.
Another big thank you also to Sharon our club secretary, for all her hard work every month: writing up the newsletter, managing the hut bookings and updating the website and our club calendar.
Our busy year and successes I put down to a strong committee so thanks must also go to Dave Rider our Vice president and his years of experience with the club which has been invaluable with all the work behind the scenes, we have an effective and diligent memberships officer in Melissa and a great new treasurer Roger as well as a number of volunteers who have put their hands up when needed.
We have embraced cloud technology with all our club documents and systems working in the cloud so that the whole committee can work better together even if not in the same location. Advocacy is an important area we do recognise is probably one area we still need to improve on and find more members to help, however thanks to one member Alan Mackie who works tirelessly on tenure reviews and hunter access, without his time and efforts, there would be many access routes or hunting areas closed off.
All in all, it’s been a very productive and fun year and I hope everyone has a great 2017/2018 season
Happy and Safe Hunting
Nathan Wise
President