Re Watervalley, some of the deer there are no different to hunt than in the wild eg the fallow and chital. Some appeared to have been recently released eg the rusa I photographed.

If one hunts a series of pastoral properties, probably only access to one, unless one is a poacher, but lets say in total the hunting area is 25,000 acres. How is hunting that, different to hunting a fenced area of 50,000 acres? And the fences do not keep the deer in.

Hunting say a 1000 acre fenced block is very different to 50,000. Also hunting an animal bred in a deer farm and then "released" is also like shooting a tame cow. Almost anyway.

Sarg is right. Lots of Aussies hunt these places in NZ. Not just the "young" generation as he says, club execs too.

But I think intensive breeding of animals for release for hunting is not ethical one bit, as the animals can take years to wild up.