Tuesday 30 March 2010

Netgunning deer in New Zealand

I haven't used a netgun before (and annoyingly, I haven't been out on any captures in a bit. Grumble.). Most of my critters are either much easier to access, such as Caribou being accessed at Onion Portage by Unit 23's Area Biologist, or are in situations where netgunning is impractical compared to the other options (e.g., darting moose). But in other areas, it's a very viable and efficient way of doing captures. I know the Canadians rely on netguns and helicopters for a large chunk of their caribou captures.



Last night, I was at a small get-together and we were talking about pilots. We were talking about a guy with 4,000 hours as a helicopter pilot doing capture work. Which is quite a bit. One of the guys there was a pilot at one point, and said he (and most people) bug out before 2,000 hours. It's just too dangerous in most of the places in AK people are called to fly.

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