The Te Awamutu branch of the New Zealand Deerstalkers Association (NZDA) adheres to the fundamental purpose and objectives set out by the NZDA.

The NZDA fundamental purpose is to:

• Ensure the traditions of recreational hunting and the rights of recreational hunters in New Zealand are protected, advanced and advocated for in the best interests of sportsmen and sportswomen; and
• Be the national body in New Zealand representing and advocating on behalf of recreational hunters.

NZDA objectives are:

• The preservation, encouragement and advancement of the sport of recreational hunting, bushcraft, shooting and the like (together, the “sport“) and to provide facilities for same;
• The formation, preservation, support, encouragement and advancement of incorporated Branches;
• The facilitation of consultation between recreational hunters, for arbitration between individuals and/or Branches on matters under dispute, and the settlement of all questions referred to NZDA;
• The protection of the rights and interests of recreational hunters and their sport, and the repression of any abuses in connection with recreational hunters or their sport;
• To make rules, policy, regulations and codes of ethics necessary or desirable in the best interests of the sport or NZDA, and publish and enforce the same;
• To gain representation, where desirable, on public bodies or organisations whose functions or objects are deemed of importance to, or affecting NZDA or recreational hunters’ interests;
• To encourage and assist with the formation of other organisations deemed necessary or desirable in the interests of the sport and outdoors recreation generally;
• The fostering of interest in native flora and fauna and their conservation;
• To strenuously oppose commercial exploitation of New Zealand’s wildlife, public lands, and natural resources wherever and whenever such activity is deemed to jeopardise, exclude, restrict, or conflict with public usage of, or access to New Zealand’s wildlife, public lands or natural resources, or where commercial exploitation is contrary to sound conservation practice or the interests of the sport or recreational hunters’ interests; and
• To do all such other things as may be necessary, incidental or conducive to the attainment of our fundamental aims, purpose and objects, Policy, Code of Ethics, and Field Guidelines.

History of NZ Deerstalkers Association

NZDA is the national body in New Zealand representing and advocating on behalf of recreational hunters

Founded in 1937, the New Zealand Deerstalkers Association Incorporated (NZDA) represents the interests of New Zealand’s hunters as a not-for-profit and non-government organisation (NGO).

NZDA is made up of its members by a nationwide Branch network of 48 local hunting clubs. This makes NZDA a democratic body giving voice to hunters and raising concerns of the hunting community both locally and nationally.

NZDA Beginning

In May 1938 120 deerstalkers assembled in Invercargill for the official formation meeting of the New Zealand Deerstalkers Association and little could they have realised the crucial role this organisation was to play during the next 80 years in fighting for the very survival of New Zealand’s big game animal herds. It was only the prior year, in 1937, that the idea of founding and incorporating the NZDA was discussed at a dinner of like-minded hunters.

NZDA – Hunters Advocate

Ever since 1930, the big game animals of New Zealand have been classed as “pests” by Government. Extermination was the bottom line of Government policy. In turn, deer culling, the use of aerial 1080 poison and commercial hunting, often from helicopters to ensure wholesale slaughter, were promoted by public authorities as ways of killing off these “noxious animals”.

Protection for Future Generations

The switch in recent years from an extermination policy to big-game management, the creation of recreational hunting areas, and the formation of the  Game Animal Council  are due in a large part to the work of NZDA Members.

NZDA has made important contributions to hunting at the personal as well as at the policy-making level. The NZDA has always been steadfast on the importance of ethics to hunting, raising the individual standards of hunters, fostering a sense of true sportsmanship, comradeship, respect for the quarry and a love of the outdoors of New Zealand.

To this day, NZDA, our branches and our members promote the practice, tradition and heritage of big game hunting in New Zealand where it has existed now for more than a century.