New Zealand Legislation: Acts

27 Declaration of recreational hunting areas

• (1) The Director-General may from time to time, by notice in the Gazette, subject to such conditions as he may indicate, publicly notify that any area of Crown-owned land (other than National Park land or Maritime Park land), and any other land included with the agreement of the owner or occupier or land controlling authority, being land on which wild animals are present, shall form or be part of a recreational hunting area where hunting as a means of recreation is to be used to control (though not exclusively) the numbers of wild animals.

  (2) The Director-General shall not declare any land other than State forest land as a recreational hunting area unless he has first sought the views of, and received written approval to such use of the land from, the person or Board or authority or Minister having or charged with the administration or control of the land.

  (3) The Director-General may at any time vary or revoke any such notice, or the conditions under which any recreational hunting area may be used; and, where studies and investigations have shown that the presence of wild animals is detrimental to the maintenance of the land and vegetation or the natural waters flowing through the land in a satisfactory state, he may:

  • (a) Permit for a specified period the hunting of all or any part of the area by hunters engaged in wild animal recovery operations under Department supervision; or

  • (b) Introduce control measures carried out by Department officers and employees; or

  • (c) Agree to allow for a specified period a trial of intensive recreational hunting.

  (4) The Director-General may at any time carry out control operations against any species of wild animals not sought after by recreational hunters in a recreational hunting area, or such species of wild animals as are not listed in a wild animal control plan for an area as animals to be controlled by recreational hunting.

  The word “Department” was substituted, as from 1 April 1987, for the words “Forest Service” pursuant to section 65(1) Conservation Act 1987 (1987 No 65). See also section 2(2) Forests Act 1949 (1949 No 19) as to an earlier amendment of this term.

  Subsection (3)(a) was amended, as from 1 October 1999, by section 10 Wild Animal Control Amendment Act 1997 (1997 No 80) by substituting the words “hunters engaged in wild animal recovery operations” for the words “wild animal recovery hunters”.