Haast police have seized the rifles and firearms licences of a 44-year-old Queenstown man and a 49-year-old Christchurch man suspected of poaching deer on private property.
Officer-in-charge at Haast Senior Constable Robin Manera told the Otago Daily Times yesterday he spoke to the two men at a hunting camp at Lake Paringa yesterday morning. A decision on charges had not yet been made.
Snr Const Manera said two local hunters heard a rifle shot about 4am yesterday near a farm at Jacob's River. They picked up the farmer and all three men went to investigate.
The trio found a vehicle and spoke to its driver and in a nearby paddock they found a second man in long grass with a dead deer, which turned out to be an escaped farmed deer. He scrambled over the fence and ran off down the road.
Senior Constable Manera said the ''local lads'' did well.
''They found the car, got the registration number, flushed the poacher and called the police as soon as they got home.''
