Climbing for Tahr

On Foot in New Zealand’s Southern Alps

- Gary Lewis

Aski lodge was built in 1962 on Rowley’s Peak. The first of its kind in New Zealand, it still stands on the high slopes. I looked from one mountaintop to the other at the weathered buildings and the bare runs. It was the middle of the day, 80 degrees, mid April, in the slow hours, when there were no tahr to be seen. I thought about what these hills would look like a couple of months later, the slopes covered in snow, skiers carving powder.

We had started at sunrise with binoculars and a spotting scope. It seemed too easy when we were in the four-door Nissan pickup. We stopped and climbed up the opposite slope a few times to glass back into dark pockets.

“They’re going to be headed to the shady faces.” Pog Cameron looked over the top of his binocular and pointed at the west-facing slopes. “The big ones look like woolly black bears,” he whispered.

That sounded simple enough, but I didn’t know about snow grass. Pog pointed out a solitary bull on the top of a hill a mile away, working into the shady side where it would spend the day. At the next spot, Pog spotted nannies and kids.

We eased around the back side of the mountain, a few hundred yards at each move – get out, climb up, glass for woolly black tahr then get back in the rig and do it again. When Pog would spot an animal, I’d try to see it, often a speck of black, a head above the grass for a minute as it looked around. Then it was gone.

Tahr were introduced to New Zealand in 1904. With no predators, the animals have thrived and can be found all the way to the knife-edged tops of the mountains on the South Island. Weighing in at 160 pounds, a big bull has horns that can stretch the tape to 13 inches or more. In terms of field judging, they may be the most difficult animal I’ve hunted.