The numbers of animals are now dwindling. Deer start to become wise to the danger of choppers and hide in the forest, laying down in the tussock or rocks or change their feeding patterns so they only come out at night.
Photo: Supplied by Paul Roy
Follow Deer Wars on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart or wherever you get your podcasts.
It becomes harder to find deer and harder to cover flying costs and make a profit. So the pilots and shooters take more risks. As they push boundaries, inevitably there are accidents and deaths.
Brian Bluey recalls a typical aerial crash with a chopper written off and a badly injured shooter airlifted out on a stretcher. Just another accident that hardly rates a mention in this high adrenaline world.
Photo: Supplied by Paul Roy
By now some men have suffered multiple crashes and the toll begins to tell with different families coping in their own ways. Lyn Bond tells how she became a believer in fate, ‘’when your time's up, your time’s up.”
This belief will be tested in the worst way possible.
Follow Deer Wars on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can hear it on Sunday mornings after 7am on RNZ National from Sunday 22 October.
Written and presented by Paul Roy.
Sound engineer - Alex Harmer.
Additional sound engineering - Jeremy Ansell and William Saunders.
Executive producers - Katy Gosset, Justin Gregory and Tim Watkin.
Deer Wars is made with the support of a Ngā Kōrero Tuku Iho, Piki Ake! Kake Ake! New Zealand Oral History Grant from Manatū Taonga Ministry for Culture and Heritage to Iguana Productions.
