Episode 1, Season 1

In this hunt, Jess hunts a red deer stag in New Zealand. 

There truly is no greater experience than hunting red deer during The Roar. This occurs during the mating season (March – April) when the mighty red stags are trying to attract the hinds (does) and convince them to join his harem. They quite literally roar, both to attract the hinds in, and to warn off any other stags who might be in the area. And, if another stag does encroach on his territory, you can be sure there’s going to be a showdown!

Jess set out to hunt a stag with her bow and had a couple of attempts but in the end, she just couldn’t get within range without spooking them.  

The red stag Jess hunted in this episode was a big old 13-pointer. He was holding about 16 hinds in his harem and was so old that his teeth had quite literally worn down to his jawline. Chances are he never would have survived another winter. But he was going to make it a last Roar to remember, passing on his bloodline to as many young as he possibly could. 

The final shot was taken on the side of a hill, 170 metres above the stag. A massive storm was brewing overhead. Rain, hail, wind, lightning. We pretty much had it all, and learned a little while later that a tornado had destroyed several houses in a nearby town.  

A brief history

New Zealand has had a torrid relationship with deer, which were first introduced by European settlers for the wealthy to hunt. Several species were released throughout the country: red, fallow, sika, elk, sambar, whitetail, and chital.

With no large predators to challenge them, deer soon became prolific, damaging the fragile environment. In 1932, the government declared them a noxious pest, and they soon became the target of professional culling teams. Over the next 22 years, over 3 million deer were killed but with so many areas of the country inaccessible, the culls had very little impact on overall deer numbers, until the 1960s when commercial cullers started using helicopters to shoot the deer from the air. Around the same time, the government started using 1080, a sodium fluoroacetate poison, to kill off large numbers.

Had the New Zealand government continued their bloody war on deer, there might not be any deer left in the country. However, they were literally saved by a double V. With new international markets opening up for velvet and venison, deer suddenly became valuable. 

Instead of shooting them from the air, commercial cullers started jumping out of helicopters to catch the wild deer alive. Think of it like the wild west, only deer were the gold, and people were definitely willing to kill each other to find and own them. There were even deer wars!

Deer farming became a thing. Because of their sheer size, the red deer were the most highly prized to farm. 

Wild-caught deer were transported to high-fenced farms and the Kiwis turned their prowess at sheep and cattle farming into deer farming, and New Zealand soon became the best in the world at breeding the very deer they had earlier tried to destroy. 

Today, all seven species of deer still exist in pockets throughout the country, though the red deer has definitely proven to be the most prolific and hardy of all the deer species. As a result, red deer are widespread  and can be found all over the North and South Islands of New Zealand in both high fenced farms and roaming free and wild across public and private lands.