A 23-year-old man has been shot dead in a hunting accident near Wanaka early this morning.
Police were called to a farm property in the Maungawera Valley, just outside the town at about 2.30am.
The man had been rabbit shooting with two friends on farmland, when they spotted a deer and chased it into a patch of manuka.
In the course of the hunt a shot was fired, hitting the man in the back of the head.
He died at the scene.
