Wairarapa Police are intensifying efforts to combat poaching across the region, stepping up patrols and urging rural communities to report suspicious activities.
Acting Sergeant Nick Bunny, Wairarapa Community and Rural Manager, said there was a need for collaboration with locals, as recent convictions highlight the consequences poachers face.
“Poaching is a significant issue for our rural communities, and it’s a problem that’s grossly under-reported,” said Acting Sergeant Bunny.
In response, Wairarapa Police have increased patrols on rural roads, with officers stopping vehicles to investigate potential illegal hunting.
“We’re not playing around,” Bunny added. “Poaching has real effects, and offenders will face real-world consequences. If we catch you poaching or illegally hunting, your rifles, ammunition, and other equipment will be confiscated, and you could be charged with firearms offences.”
Wairarapa Police have already secured multiple convictions over the past year, with poachers facing prosecution, the revocation of firearms licences, and the destruction of equipment.
Bunny noted that one individual in South Wairarapa had pleaded guilty to unlawful hunting, resulting in the loss of his firearms licence and equipment.
To help Police tackle the problem, Bunny is calling on rural communities to report incidents, stressing the importance of these reports in guiding enforcement efforts.
“From our conversations with farmers, we’ve become aware that many unlawful hunting incidents aren’t being reported. Almost every farmer had a story of hearing gunshots at night or seeing suspicious vehicles on rural roads at odd times,” Bunny explained.
By reporting suspicious or illegal activity, farmers can help Police target poaching hotspots. “When you report suspicious or illegal activity, it builds a picture for us of where our focus needs to be – we really need the rural community to help us by making those reports as soon as possible,” he urged.
As spring brings new growth and mating season, Wairarapa Police have launched night patrols targeting known poaching areas. “Our focus won’t stop here,” said Bunny.
“We need these communities to feel safe and prepared to report poaching or suspicious activity.”
Police are looking for a person in gumboots carrying a small ladder
how about looking at the reason for poaching? are there any free roaming venison in Wairarapa or has that been stopped?
A sign of the times.
It reminds me of the battle between peasants and the ‘haves’, reminds me of the Nottingham Sheriff fighting the ‘illegal’, ‘illegality’ being the rule of the ‘haves’ who couldn’t get enough. Look up ‘yeoman’ and learn history, because it’s repeating.
Today’s Sheriff too has shifted from protecting the people to becoming a tool for the ‘haves’. Good luck with “we really need the rural community to help us”. Poaching by definition is stealing from the farmer/landowner, but that doesn’t seem to be the problem. Usually farmers are actually happy if someone shoots the deer and pigs (designated as ‘pests’ by DOC) up in the hills, that come down onto their paddocks to eat the grass.
NZ police is a corporation acting on behalf of other corporations, especially the corporation of New Zealand, an entity that is illegal in its own making. More and more farmers become aware how they are shafted, divided and as such used by TPTB. Poaching is one of the things that happens when govt curtails the making of an honest living with ever increasing stipulations and restrictions. This ‘regulation’ just gives the police the ‘right’ to search any vehicle. What police are trying to achieve is simply another level of control to snoop around.
The NATURAL right to occupy and plant and gain susennance from the land we live on stems from God’s given right. NOBODY can deny that right! Just because a whole machine of government agencies (clandestinely introduced), in collusion with corporate owned media, have created the perception of ‘illegality’ does not mean that THEY have any RIGHT over a free man, woman, boy or girl. And that includes agencies that run amok like IRD, local countcils, medical council, Oranga Tamariki, ‘education’ by government and it’s enforcers, the police corporation and their collaborateurs, etc. etc..
Corporate law is NOT peoples’ law. The operation manual of the police corporation has NO standing. The only power they have is to chase a known criminal. The Policing Act details it all.