Gents,

I'm headed to Perth for work and have a few off weeks to settle in before the work begins. Since I don't require much time to settle, I wanted your suggestions on the most challenging hunt with the highest pay off in the region. I am willing to travel to NZ and anywhere in the greater Australian region. I know this is a broad question, my intention is to get a broad array of recommendations and follow up accordingly.

Moose hunt in New Zealand

Could you point me a direction to do some more research on this? Is it particularly tough terrain? Elusive animals?

T-P is taking the piss.
Moose haven't been seen in NZ since 1952 so the challenge aspect assumes miracle status.
For sure you should consider a Chamois/Tahr hunt while down under.
Free range self guided alpine hunting is entirely possible for all adventurous hunters.

Are there still blackbuck in WA? If so, I'd put that at the top of the list - maybe for the whole country, since it's the only wild antelope I can think of.

Actually , Ridgeman , moose sightings occurred into this century - with confirmed DNA identification, and moose shot and recovered in the 1990's.

Are they still there ? Maybe , maybe not . Certainly never much of a population , in the least hospitable part of the country.

Can you hunt them ? Sure , but no promise you will find one.....

That's interesting.
Can you tell me more about the recent Moose shot ?
I can't find any verified records of this happening.
I wasn't aware that recent DNA evidence had been found either.
Interested to know more.

I'm sure that shortly they will appear on "Mountain Monsters" or "Finding Bigfoot"

Ridgeman - get yourself a copy of the book " A (Nearly) Complete History Of The Moose In New Zealand " by Ken Tustin ISBN978-1-877256-98-1
and its predecessor , " A Wild Moose Chase : , by Ken Tustin ISBN 0-9583723-0-6.

The limited public knowledge of moose in NZ gets expanded considerably with the information in those two books.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i62UvWg-h2w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yyGCqWhbjI

muzza, do you reckon there are any left there?

Hunting a big buffalo in the Northern Territory would be one of the ultimate Australian hunts. However, although I've never hunted them, I would think that a big sambar stag in Victoria's high country would be perhaps the ultimate.

Rockdoc - I dont know if there are any there still . It would be nice to think there is , but time , climate , terrain etc all conspire against that..

Ken Tustin has spend half his life looking for moose , he has conclusive DNA evidence that they were there recently but a remnant population of mobile critturs are hard to actually find.

Thanks.

Bit like the Tassie Tiger

A party of eight of us spent a couple of weeks back in 1977 searching/hunting for Moose in Fiordland. We choppered a couple of boats, outboards and drums of fuel in so we could cover a lot of area in and around Dusky Sound including Wet Jacket Arm and the Seaforth River watershed where the original Moose herd were liberated in 1910. Three bulls and a couple of cows have been officially shot and photographed in Fiordland with the last bull shot in 1952. I was almost a 1 year old then and some years later as a youngster I remember sitting underneath that mounted head, with the 'bell' dangling on my head, in the little cottage where the shooter lived with his mother

On our search we did not see any firm sign of moose although did come across some very high browsing where the browsed vegetation would generally have been out of reach of red deer, and one member of our party who was an old very experienced rifle and bow hunter did catch a glimpse of an animal in the bush which he described as having quite a pronounced sloping back, unlike any deer he had ever seen.

Interestingly although Moose are accomplished swimmers as are red deer and on every Island even quite small ones in and around Dusky Sound we came across red deer, our chopper pilot said that it was only a few weeks before we arrived that he had seen, from his chopper, red deer swimming. He had never seen moose anywhere let alone swimming, and this was after many hours of flying over many years meat hunting in that area in choppers.

In the end like so many before and after us there is no conclusive proof if Moose still exist in that area of Fiordland.

Despite many stories over the years about fisherman and others shooting moose there has never been any photographic or other visual evidence of this. Moose have been off the protected list in NZ since about the 1930's or 40's so there has been no reason for hunters or fisherman to have kept any shot animals secret. Hunters and fisherman as they are here in NZ would hardly contain themselves if they shot a moose and would be quick to exert their bragging rights.

So BonsaiCrimson if you are looking for a challenge here is one way to do it

Off to look for the mystical NZ moose, saves a lot of paddling!




Big country known for atrocious weather, huge sandflies and thick steep bush.


Up the Seaforth River, just hold on tight and concentrate on where you put your feet.

That's quite a story eagle27, would have been very interesting to be on that search.

That is big country!

Thanks,

Chris

Thanks Muzza.
I have the books you mentioned.
I'm more interested in the detail behind your claims re DNA evidence and a Moose having been shot and recovered in the 90's.
Please, tell us more.

quote:

Originally posted by BonsaiCrimson:
Gents,

I'm headed to Perth for work and have a few off weeks to settle in before the work begins. Since I don't require much time to settle, I wanted your suggestions on the most challenging hunt with the highest pay off in the region. I am willing to travel to NZ and anywhere in the greater Australian region. I know this is a broad question, my intention is to get a broad array of recommendations and follow up accordingly.

Why go all the way to NZ to hunt moose when Australia has its own cryptozoological challenges: Puma hunting in the Grampians, Thylacine hunting in Tassie etc.

I wonder if the DNA evidence of moose since the last time I saw Ken Tustin present his findings was from the same lab who confirmed foxes in Tasmania based on fecal DNA?

Yes.
Most likely fecal.
Probably bovine

Just reporting whats in the books , Ridgeman. Its over to the individual to make their own call on believing or not .

I beieve there were moose there in the 1990's , fishermen have anecdotal evidence of shooting the occasional one up til then , so who really knows.

Its a better bet than finding a Tasmanian Tiger anyway .

I have seen Ken Tustin's TV program and the game camera clip of the animal waking past. There is a clear difference between red deer in that clip and this much larger animal, darker, distinct hump & concave back profile & the gangling walk of a moose. Pity that the head was covered by a big leaf!

Muzza - happy that you wish to believe Moose are still about and it would be a wonderful day if this was proven true.
But - check your facts - refer Tustin's book - A (Nearly) Complete History of the Moose in NZ - pages 189-195.
NO Moose confirmed shot and recovered since the fifties.
Tustin himself has expressed some concern over the integrity of the two DNA tested hair samples.

Stalking white pointers in the NT could be rewarding.

quote:

Originally posted by muzza:
Just reporting whats in the books , Ridgeman. Its over to the individual to make their own call on believing or not .

I beieve there were moose there in the 1990's , fishermen have anecdotal evidence of shooting the occasional one up til then , so who really knows.

Its a better bet than finding a Tasmanian Tiger anyway .

Funny how fishermen seem to do it but hunters cant!!

quote:

Originally posted by Matt Graham:

quote:

Originally posted by muzza:
Just reporting whats in the books , Ridgeman. Its over to the individual to make their own call on believing or not .

I beieve there were moose there in the 1990's , fishermen have anecdotal evidence of shooting the occasional one up til then , so who really knows.

Its a better bet than finding a Tasmanian Tiger anyway .

Funny how fishermen seem to do it but hunters cant!!

The fisherman operating in that area are hard living, hard drinking men, and I for one would be taking their stories on moose with a grain of salt. If the chopper boys have never ever come across a moose in the many thousands of hours flying I very much doubt a fisherman has ever shot or seen one, bit hard to see through an alcoholic haze

A bit more seriously 9only a bit) surely someone would have taken a photo had they shot one. Plenty of photos of fish, giant crayfish, deer, etc. but not a hint of a moose.

I spent a bit of time with Ray Tinsley who hunted extensively for moose in Fiordland and who wrote a book on his expeditions to try and find them. He had a lot of photos of so called moose footprints, browsing, etc. and had heard lots of anecdotal stories on fisherman and others shooting moose but had never come across any photos or other hard evidence in all his extensive research. BTW I was credited with some photos in his book but none I supplied got published.

Ken Tustin was the one who had the DNA tested overseas and he stands by the results - he has DNA from two separate hair samples sample which both tested positive for being from Canadian moose, the last from 2004. Plus he has his pictures from 1995.
But verified by the DNA, it is a scientific fact that a live moose must have been on the scene at Shark Cove, Fiordland, in 2004.

When I spoke to him last year, he reiterated that if the Fiordland moose was in court the on trial, the DNA evidence alone would be enough.

(It is accepted by 'mooseologists' that the last one shot was in 1971, by a meat shooter, who didn't publisize it because he didn't want his block shut down. Fascinating to think the last moose to be shot in NZ was probably sold in a German supermarket.)

I went looking for them in 2012, and I did not have to go far up Henry Burn (off the Seaforth) to find browsing characteristic of moose, which I have never seen anywhere else, and is utterly unlike red deer.

Remember, Fiordland is one of the most rugged parts of the world and it is the size of a small European nation. At any given time there is nobody actively looking for moose at all.
In 2012, there was just me.


Suspected Canadian moose browsing, Herrick Creek, Fiordland

Loch Maree, Seaforth Valley, Fiordland