← THE TAHR HANDBOOKCHAPTER 03 / 273 MIN READ

WHERE THEY LIVE

Tahr inhabit a defined feral range running along the spine of the Southern Alps. The range covers roughly 706,000 hectares from the Rakaia and Whitcombe valleys in the north down to the Hunter and Young ranges south of Lake Hawea. It straddles the Main Divide, so the country breaks into two distinct halves: a wetter, bushier western flank dropping into the West Coast forests, and a drier, more open eastern flank running through the Mackenzie Country and inland Canterbury.

The range is divided into seven Management Units (with two exclusion zones on either end where any tahr are considered a colonisation threat and are removed). The unit numbering and exact boundaries shift slightly between published versions of DOC's Operational Plan and the Game Animal Council's reference maps, so always check the most current map before you plan a hunt. Broadly, though, the units run roughly as follows:

  • MU1 — South Rakaia / Upper Rangitata. Eastern Canterbury, the heart of the country most international hunters see. Subject to a hunter-led management project, a community arrangement modelled on the Fiordland wapiti scheme.
  • MU2 — Whitcombe. Western flank: Whitcombe and Whataroa catchments, classic wet West Coast country.
  • MU3 — Gammack / Two Thumb. Eastern Canterbury, between the Rangitata and Tekapo catchments.
  • MU4 — National Parks. Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park and Westland Tai Poutini National Park. The only unit where DOC is statutorily required to remove all tahr, including bulls.
  • MU5 — Ben Ohau / Mackenzie. South of MU3, taking in the Hopkins, Dobson, and adjoining valleys.
  • MU6 — Landsborough. The legendary Westland wilderness ballot country.
  • MU7 — Wills / Makarora / Hunter. The southern edge, lower densities, harder to find big bulls but quieter country.

Below the level of the Management Unit, hunters talk in catchments. These are the names you will hear over coffee, in the car park, and when an outfitter asks where you'd like to hunt.

  • Rangitata. Big braided river, headwaters fanning into the Two Thumb, Sinclair and Arrowsmith ranges. Mix of public conservation land and big private high-country stations like Mesopotamia, Erewhon, Mt Potts, Manuka Point. Trophy bulls average around 12 to 13 inches, with eight- and nine-year-old animals common. Some of New Zealand's longest-running guided operations base out of here.
  • Two Thumb Range. The eastern faces above the upper Rangitata. Tahr, chamois, red deer and the occasional Bennett's wallaby. Open tussock and scree, big high basins.
  • Rakaia. The south Rakaia is among the highest density tahr country in New Zealand. Classic glassing-from-across-the-valley terrain.
  • Mathias. A tributary of the Rakaia. Smaller, more intimate. Popular with foot hunters who don't want a helicopter circus.
  • Hopkins / Huxley. Off Lake Ohau. Beech forest in the bottom valleys, tussock tops, scree above. A walk-in classic.
  • Dobson / Hunter. South of the Hopkins. Dobson runs to Lake Ohau, the Hunter to Lake Hawea.
  • Landsborough. The Westland wilderness. Helicopter access only at designated landing sites under the winter ballot. Heavy weather. Legendary catchment. Nanny groups can be found on bluffs inside the beech forest; the bull groups live above on the alpine bluffs.
  • Whataroa / Whitcombe / Karangarua. The famous West Coast catchments. Wet, rugged, bushy at low altitude, gnarly high. Usually heli-supported.
  • Godley / Cass / Macaulay. North of Lake Tekapo. Open, dry, big-sky country. Foot or 4WD access. Note: the Cass valley spoken of by tahr hunters is the Mackenzie Cass, not the better-known Cass at Arthur's Pass — different country entirely.

About 558,000 hectares of the feral range — roughly four-fifths of it — sits outside the national parks where bulls are huntable. DOC has stated it will not target identifiable bulls over 425,000 hectares of public conservation land outside the national parks. The other side of that statistic is that within the national parks DOC actively removes all tahr, so as a practical matter Aoraki/Mount Cook and Westland Tai Poutini are not places to plan a trophy hunt.

A great deal of the best country sits on private high-country pastoral stations and Crown pastoral leases. These are usually accessed through the outfitter who holds the lease or has an arrangement with the station. If you want a Rangitata bull on private land, you book a guide on that station; you do not turn up uninvited.