A man planning to get married is now "lying in a coffin" after he was shot dead by a friend on a hunting trip.
Builder Mark Richard Vanderley (26), who recently moved to Palmerston, was fatally shot while spotlight-hunting for deer with friends north of Balfour at the weekend.
His Oamaru-based grandfather, Damm Vanderley, told The New Zealand Herald he had lost his only grandson, who was a "nice lad".
The young man was going to get married "and now he's lying in a coffin in Invercargill". Going hunting for deer at night with spotlights was "no good", his grandfather said.
Police say they have been speaking to the traumatised members of the hunting party, including the person who fired the shot that killed Mr Vanderley as he walked along a hillside trying to find a deer.
Mr Vanderley loved "anything outdoors" and liked to take out his own jet-boat, former boss Greg McIntosh, of Gore company Ajax Building Contractors, said.
"He was into his rugby, loved his hunting, duck-shooting, jet-boating," Mr McIntosh told the Otago Daily Times Mr Vanderley worked for the company as a builder for eight years, starting as an apprentice after he left high school and working up to the role of foreman.
"He was one of those people that you knew would go a long way and succeed in whatever they chose to do. He was motivated, an outgoing person and a very good tradesman, " Mr McIntosh said.
"I'd sum him up as a hell of a nice guy. He was a real outdoors guy who loved his hunting. It was a very unfortunate accident and a tragic waste of life."
Mr Vanderley left the company last September to move north to Palmerston, "to give his father a hand on the farm"at Palmerston and go out building on his own account, Mr McIntosh said.
"This was a tragic thing to happen and we're all feeling for his family."
Southland area police commander Inspector Lane Todd told the Otago Daily Times a team of police officers was investigating the incident.
"Obviously an extensive investigation has commenced and it's too early to predict [the] outcome".
The group of hunters were all about the same age as Mr Vanderley - all in their mid-20s - and knew each other well.
They were all from Gore and the surrounding rural area, Insp Todd said.
Briton Ian Purchase, whose son Matthew was shot at point-blank range in the back of the head while rabbit-hunting in the Waikato in 2007, told The New Zealand Herald: "It does seem quite extraordinary that this keeps on happening in New Zealand and we do feel for all the families who have lost loved ones".
His son, then 22, an agricultural student in New Zealand on an exchange, needed brain surgery and was in a critical condition for weeks.
Matthew Purchase had since made a remarkable recovery, his father said.
"Quite amazing when you think back to his initial prognosis, and we are not quite sure how he has been able to do it. I don't think his doctors are, either"
The New Zealand Mountain Safety Council says of the 12 people killed in the last 12 years in deer-hunting mishaps, 10 were shot by others in their own hunting parties.
Firearms and hunter training programme manager Mike Spray said failure to properly identify the target seemed to be a common factor in all cases.
Sometimes "buck fever" took over logical thought and hunters just assumed they were firing at a deer.
"It is adrenaline buzz. But these emotions have got to be controlled." -The New Zealand Herald/Otago Daily Times
