The West Coast

The West Coast on the South Island of New Zealand has a culture all to its own. It kind of reminds me of redneck hicks you'd find in Southern Alberta, or maybe Texas. Is that rude? Oh well. Our morning stop was at a random cafe in the middle of nowhere that was also a history museum from the days when brave New Zealand souls caught deer by jumping out of helicopters and wrangling them to the ground. I shit you not.

For 2 dollars, we got to go into the museum area and see artifacts from the days of deer trapping as well as watch a documentary about the era. I kept waiting for someone to say "GOTCHA!" but it never came. 80 people actually lost their lives jumping out of helicopters. The idea behind the whole thing was that deer were introduced to New Zealand in 1861, and over the next 100 years, they bred like crazy and started to take over the south island, so much so that their presence was negatively impacting the natural landscape and native animals. So, deer hunters were hired by the government to kill up to 60 000 deer each year. This went on until they hit a peak in 1967 of 110 000 deer being exported for their meat, but at that point, deer populations began to decline and their monetary value could not be ignored. The only natural thing to do was trap the deer and bring them to farms where the animals could be raised for their venison. By jumping on them from helicopters. ...

Regardless, deer farming is now a multi-million dollar industry in New Zealand.

The building was full of clever little signs and insults mocking other parts of the world and Auckland. They mocked drinks like latte's (we only have coffee here!) and had a huge area devoted to the evils of 1080 poison which is used in New Zealand to kill off other introduced pests like possums and stoats. A large portion of the rest of the world has banned 1080, since it can be really bad for humans if used improperly. The cafe seemed to be anti possum, but they did have 2 as pets in cages in the back so I'm not really sure what the idea was there. Strange folk on the west coast.