The Country 20/05/25: Corina Jordan talks to Jamie Mackay

The outgoing chief executive of Fish & Game NZ responds to Dr Jacqueline Rowarth’s column on ducks. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You might remember on last week's show we caught up
with doctor Jacqueline Rowath who talked about ducks. Now, someone
who's got into a bit of a flap about this
bad duck pun is the chief executive of Fish and
Game New zeal And. She hasn't really I just thought
i'd throw that bad pun in there, Karina Jordan. You
agreed with some of the stuff, Karina, that Jacqueline said,

(00:21):
but you have taken issue with other points. What's wrong
with what she was saying?

Speaker 2 (00:26):
I think Jacquelines really helpfully identified the challenge with the
protests that were at Lake Elasmir, in the disruption to
the hunting that occurred there, and she's healthily put in
context the value of hunting tinuwe Zellen and in particular
a game bird hunting. What we've done is we just
provided a little bit more context around some of the
points that Jacquelin's made around ducks are being providing ecolla

(00:49):
into the waterways and also the number of them out there,
and some challenges that we've had in crops in particularly
isolated incidences on the South Island.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Yeah, I don't know if i'd call them isolated incidences.
This year I know down in south and some of
my farmer mates down there are the ducks Carena were
of plague proportion.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
I think you've had some really significant challenges in parts
of Southland, Jamie, and I know where you are in particular,
it's a hot spot for a mallard population. So what
we've had is we've had a really wet spring, which
means that we've got a lot of juvenile birds on
the ground and it's been warm, and then that's corresponded
with the timing for crops and that's caused impacts where
we've had new crops planted, and in particular I think

(01:31):
around your area where we've had grain planted. But that's
not to say that we've got really high populations of
mallards throughout Southland. It's in isolated areas and that definitely
needs to be managed and we're working with farmers to
manage those issues.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Should you have an early season where I don't know,
in February or March, they can go out and shoot,
for want of a better words, some of these ducks.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
One of the options is to have like a midyear season,
and some regions do that and I know that the
Southland again Council is definitely looking into that. Mallard population
management's really tricky. The populations tend to fluctuate quite quickly.
So last year we had quite low populations and then
with those perfect conditions, you know, the populations popped up.
Would be expecting them to drop that down again over

(02:14):
winter with high mortality. But the team's keeping a really
close eye on those those populations and one of the
options in our talkit is to talk to the Minister
of Hunting and Fishing about a mid season hunting hunting
season essentially.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
Who just happens to be the minister for the South
Island as well, James Mega. Look, will you and Jacquelin
agree to agree on things like activists there they are
pests to be perfectly honest around the duck hunting season,
but you agree to disagree on how much E coal
I ducks produce.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
It's really the context around it. I don't disagree with
Jacqueline around the science. The game birds can produce quite
a bit of ekoli, but a system in the context,
what we know is that we need to all be
working together to ensure that we've got healthy freshwater environments
for everybody that's game birds and that's a farming as well.
And with the research that was that Jack Clung cited,

(03:07):
what we know is that during high flow events, you know,
agriculture contributes a lot to our freshwater, as we know.
But what we don't want to go is a blame game.
We all want to work together, and so we're just
providing some context around that. The other thing we know
is that ducks generly hang out and wetlands, and these
habitats are specifically designed to be the lands filter. As
we talk about wetlands being the kidneys of our landscape,

(03:30):
and that's generally where we see aggregation of our game
bird species.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
You also wrote that you do hear claims from time
to time that duck hunting should be taken out of
the hands of fish and game. No doubt you won't
agree with that, even though you personally are leaving Fish
and Game to take up a new position as chief
executive of the Game Animal Council.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
Yes, that's right. I think what we can do is
we can look to the history of the Candida is
to give us an indication about why this isn't a
good So what we know is that if populations are unmanaged,
then they can cause problems. There are a couple of
indigenous populations. The Fishing Game also manages per keecko and
Paradise shell duck, and if they are not managed they
can also cause problems when Canada guess We're taken out

(04:15):
of Fishing Game's hands, essentially resulting in a population explosion,
which is causing problems throughout New Zealand And including with
farming communities, and that cost now is being borne by
those communities indirectly by farmers, and so I'd be advocating
for Maladis in particular to stay with Fishing Game as
a responsible manager of these species. When that happens, hunters

(04:35):
take responsibility for the populations and then conservation and also
management is funded by the hunters.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
Karina Jordan, a departing Chief Executive of Fishing Game New Zealand.
Thanks for some of your time today. Good luck in
your new venture at the Game Animal Council, and we
will be posting your response to JACQUEYLN Roweit's plum on
our website. People can read all about it at the
Country dot co dot NZ. See you later,