At its meeting last week, the Otago Fish & Game Council decided to write to the Fish & Game New Zealand Council to start the process of making the grey teal a fully fledged game bird, able to be classed as wildlife that may be hunted or killed.
But it may be a hard one to get past the government, as the Minister for Hunting and Fishing has raised concerns.
In his report to the council, Otago Fish & Game chief executive Ian Hadland outlined the process to classify the bird as a hunted animal.
In 2010, the grey teal was moved from being absolutely protected, which meant maximum protection, into schedule 3 of the Wildlife Act, he said.
But the grey teal did not become a game species, so in practice, it remained protected from legal hunting.
The 2010 change showed a precedent — grey teal were already "downgraded" from total protection to a schedule that allowed possible regulated take, he said in the report.
Any future proposal to make them a huntable species would build on that.
To make grey teal huntable would require a multi-step, statutory and management process, he said.
That would mean having robust population and sustainability evidence.
High-quality, peer-reviewed data would need to show national population size, trend, distribution and that a sustainable annual harvest was biologically feasible.
There needed to be items such as proposed seasons, bag limits, regional rules, a monitoring and compliance strategy and adaptive management to reduce risk to populations and non-target species.
Stakeholder and treaty engagement would also be needed.
Changing a species’ legal status required a formal process involving the Department of Conservation and the minister of conservation.
A final decision would also include public consultation and could be politically sensitive.
Wildfowl protection was often contentious, he said.
A final regulatory or legislative decision would be required.
Feedback was sought from other councils across the country and there was a mixed response. Some councils were supportive, while others had not discussed it.
The national council did not have a position.
Minister for Fishing and Hunting James Meager had written to a Fish & Game Waikato member John Dyer last year and said making the grey teal a hunted species could risk harm to the threatened brown teal.
The grey and brown teal were difficult to tell apart in different lights and while brown teal numbers were increasing, they were far from secure.
Any change would not come until 2027, Mr Hadland wrote.
Birds NZ said in its guide the grey teal was a small, slim, "plain-faced" duck, considerably smaller than a mallard or grey duck. Grey teal were hunted in Australia. The exact number of grey teal in New Zealand was unknown.
