In the 1970's and 1980's rusa deer were intensively commercially hunted. Today there remains a strong interest in the hunting of rusa trophies in New Zealand;.
>>HUNTING
Te Urewera BY ROB ALLEN AND DAVE FORSYTH
RUSA
New Zealand has a small but valuable herd of rusa deer – but it was actually established by accident! Eight ‘sambar deer’ were released at Galatea in 1907/8; the herd established but it was almost fifty years later before they were formally identified, by Thane Riney, as actually being rusa deer.
Forested slopes in Te Urewera are where rusa deer are found.
70 / rodandrifle.co.nz / NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015
R
usa favoured bracken areas where the forests had been burnt, and the adjacent farmland in the early years. The herd has spread very slowly and in 2000 was estimated to occupy an area of about 565 km2, mostly within Te Urewera (formerly Te Urewera National Park). Nowadays rusa deer tend to inhabit steep forested slopes, including those where the forest has grown on the former bracken areas. Little is known about the biology of New Zealand’s rusa herd, but observations by hunters suggest that this tropical species finds the Te Urewera winters difficult, with dead deer, particularly juveniles, often observed after periods of cold weather. This also happens in parts of Australia where they have been introduced. Hunters have shown a long and enduring interest in rusa deer. They have always been highly valued as trophies, although antler dimensions here have not achieved those of their counterparts in New Caledonia or Australia. In the 1970’s and 1980’s rusa deer were intensively commercially hunted. Today there remains a strong interest in the hunting of rusa trophies in New Zealand; in recent times there has been a noticeable increase in the number of hunters about during the rusa rut which occurs during the months of July and August. It was as a result of such a rusa hunting trip that a game camera study was initiated. One of the authors of this story, Dave Forsyth, was on that trip; he’s an animal ecologist and had been using game cameras to study sambar deer and wild dogs in Australia. Also on that trip were his co-author, Rob Allen, who’s another ecologist, with a long history of studying Te Urewera forests; and his brother (Roy Allen), a local dairy farmer who has hunted rusa for many years and has shot some significant rusa trophies. Their account continues: Most hunters put cameras where they hope to photograph deer, but our interests were to develop an understanding of places rusa do and do not live and frequent. We used 25 trail cameras placed on grid-points that were 250 metres apart in a 100 hectare area of forest in the Ikawhenua Range, along the edge of Galatea. The cameras were mounted on a tree trunk at each grid-point and orientated to cover an image area of 4m by 8m that contained at least one animal trail. The cameras were activated within one second after detecting movement; they took colour images during daylight hours and black-and-white images at night, using their infra-red sensors. Each camera recorded deer activity during the winter (June to August) and the summer (December to February) periods of 2010 and 2011. Our cameras took a total of 513 images of rusa, sometimes with more than one in an image. Rusa deer images were recorded at all 25 camera locations at some point during
the four three-month periods, with some locations recording more than 40 images while others yielded less than five. Rusa deer were most commonly recorded at camera locations that had high solar radiation in winter - a point that many rusa deer hunters would expect - but, more surprisingly, also in summer. Rusa stags were also commonly photographed along with other rusa deer at sunny locations in winter, but were largely absent from the study area in summer; it’s unclear where they go in summer. Rusa hinds were also more common in the previously-burnt forest, now dominated by kanuka and rewarewa, rather than the unburnt areas which are often dominated by tawa. While kanuka and rewarewa are not species palatable to deer the burnt forests do contain a diverse understorey of plant species which are eaten by the deer. Our cameras also showed many other
interesting facets of rusa deer life. For example, the rusa rut occurs around July, but we photographed rusa mating in February. We also photographed one rusa hind that was distinctive because she had no ears or tail, the sharp margin of the stubs suggesting that the ears had been cut off. ‘No Ears’ was photographed with a fawn in the second year of the study, but we found her dead in the last winter of the project; we could not determine the cause of death. Rusa deer are often thought of as being “nocturnal”, and while this may be so when feeding on farmland it is not really so in the forest. The only time during the day that we recorded few images – and therefore that the rusa deer were inactive - was 8 to 11am in summer mornings and 10am to noon in winter. Of course hunters will want to know whether we photographed any large trophy rusa stags?
>>Game Camera Photos Rusa hind with no ears or tail.
Rusa spiker mating with a rusa hind in February.
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 / rodandrifle.co.nz / 71
>>Game Camera Photos This Rusa stag had the largest head out of all the animals photographed. (The oval area around the stag has been enhanced for contrast)
Red stag with a rusa hind.
The answer to that is yes! However of several rusa deer stags photographed with trophy heads the largest – a truly magnificent specimen - was from outside the study area, while we were initially testing the cameras. Two photographs were obtained in the forest on the same date, at 11 pm at night – and the stag was never photographed again! Red deer and pigs also live in the area. While red deer were rarely photographed
72 / rodandrifle.co.nz / NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015
in the study area in winter they were frequently recorded in summer at 20 of the 25 camera sites, particularly during the second year. As was the case for the rusa stags in summer, we could not determine where the red deer moved to in winter – just that it was outside the study area. In the summer red deer were also relatively inactive between 8 and 11am. Years of hunting in the area had not led to sightings of deer groups that were made up of both red deer and rusa deer - although a red deer stag was repeatedly photographed with rusa deer hinds in the second summer. Pigs were photographed at all 25 camera locations. Many piglets were photographed, but only in the first summer season; it has been suggested that feral pigs have more and larger litters following a heavy fruiting event. Certainly, based on measurements from elsewhere in Te Urewera, there was more tawa fruit (12 times as much) produced in 2010 than 2011. It was also shown that pigs and piglets were more frequent and active at camera locations where there was a high level of phosphorus in the ground; this condition is known to relate to the abundance of organisms in the soil. Pigs rooted up the topsoil at a few of the camera locations but were mainly photographed feeding in the leaf litter on the ground at most sites. Pigs were inactive only between 3 and 8 am in summer and before daybreak in winter. The cameras also picked up hunters and their dogs; hunters were photographed at six of the 25 camera locations. We might have expected the hunters to visit those locations with an abundance of rusa deer – but this was not the case! The two camera locations which recorded the most rusa deer images, including rusa stags, were never visited by hunters. Neither location was observable from a distant ridge – a practice commonly used by rusa hunters. These results indicate just how hard it is to successfully hunt New Zealand’s rusa herd!
Little is known about the biology of New Zealand’s rusa herd, but observations by hunters suggest that this tropical species finds the Te Urewera winters difficult. CAMERA STUDY INFO: www.journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0128924)
