Photo: RNZ/Cosmo Kentish-Barnes
Hunting operator Simon Guild (above) runs the High Peak Game Estate on the family farm in the Canterbury High Country.
"For a property like High Peak it allows us to generate another income stream that's insulated from farming and the climate" he says.
Settled in 1856 and owned by the Guild family since 1973, the station is a 3,700 hectare high country farm in the Malvern foothills running deer, sheep, cattle and now game animals.
Trophy hunters from around the world as well as local hunters visit the scenic property to shoot red stag, fallow bucks, wild goat, feral sheep and wild boar.
In order to maintain good genetics animals are regularly released into the 1800 hectare hunting block.
The land is fenced off from the adjoining public land and Simon says a fair chase environment has been established to ensure hunters do not have an improper advantage over the animal.
"It's about animals having the freedom to express natural behaviours, the ability and inclination to evade the hunter, to be able to express mating behaviours and basically to live as a wild animal should."
