KEY POINTS:
It is an issue dividing conservationists. Should a mammal vulnerable to extinction be culled to preserve a wilderness?
This is a live issue in the South Island, where authorities and hunters during the past few decades have reduced the numbers of Himalayan tahr running wild by about 90 per cent, to around 10,000.
Small numbers of tahr, closely related to the wild goat, were introduced to the South Island in 1904 and 1907 and flourished. They are now regarded as a pest in some areas because they damage rocky hillsides and eat native vegetation.
The cull may have been good news for plants not used to browsing animals (there were none before European settlement) but it was bad news for the tahr.
The species struggles to survive in the Himalayas, where hunting, predators and habitat loss have caused numbers to dwindle.
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) lists the animals as vulnerable.
Tahr were recently eradicated in South Africa, where feral populations were living in a national park.
Small numbers of tahr exist in game parks in North America but the only wild population outside the Himalayas is now in New Zealand.
Authorities in New Zealand say they are not interested in whether tahr are under threat in the Himalayas.
Herb Christophers, from the Department of Conservation, said his organisation had to best balance the needs of New Zealand.
"We are not doing our conservation work for the Himalayas. The Department of Conservation in New Zealand doesn't tell other people how to run their conservation programmes. If they can't get their act together and organise a recovery programme, that is their own problem," he said.
"The fact that it happens to be an endangered species in its own country is beside the point. We are trying to protect our own species".
He said authorities from India and Nepal were welcome to come and get the animals from New Zealand if they were concerned about them.
New Zealand conservation authorities say they want to eradicate tahr from national parks but keep some in other areas so hunters can continue to enjoy their sport.
They say numbers should stabilise at about 10,000 in New Zealand and it is unlikely the animals will ever become extinct.
Not all conservationists agree with the DoC strategy. Kevin Hackwell, from the Forest and Bird Protection Society, would like to see tahr wiped off the New Zealand landscape.
"It is like saying foxes are fairly rare in England so they should be allowed to run free in Australia," he said.
He believes some tahr hunters have been reckless.
"The idea that hunters are prepared to give their fingers to the plan and take the tahr outside their range I think says some terrible things about the hunters. It is an arrogance obviously and a greed," he said.
- AAP
