STORY BY: Jo Barrett
PHOTOS BY: Cam Henderson
LOCATION: New Zealand
To Ambassador Jo Barrett, food waste is a travesty. As a chef and restaurant owner, she’s spent a majority of her career finding ways to prevent it, and has recently added a new title in her pursuit toward sustainability — bow hunter. As she embarks on the hunt of a lifetime in search of New Zealand’s invasive Himalayan tahr, she’s faced with challenging terrain, inclement weather, and a battle of her conscience when it's time to take the shot.
ABOVE: New Zealand is home to the Southern Alps mountain range, the largest mountain range in the country. It runs the entire length of the South Island.
One of my favourite aspects about being a chef is the connection to nature, but for a long time, I struggled to find it in a commercial kitchen. There was a lot about camaraderie and technique, but I felt there was a void when it came to nature. It wasn't until I started baking that I realised how much the outdoors informed the kitchen - it's where we get all our ingredients after all! That's when I started questioning how we get our food and what my role as a chef, and just a citizen of the planet, was. Was I damaging the planet in my pursuit of cooking or was I helping it? It was a pivotal moment in my career when my focus became driven by sustainability.
In an effort to cut down on food miles, I picked up fly fishing about five years ago, which eventually led me to hunting. The idea of collecting your own food was really exciting to me, but it took me a little while to commit to it fully. I didn’t want to kill anything, which is a funny dilemma considering the activity. But a trip with friends, where we made a meal out of what we hunted, opened my eyes to the idea that the most sustainable way to cook is to harvest your own ingredients — meat included.
From then on, I took a keen interest in the invasive species in Australia and how the government manages them. So much money is spent on trying to eradicate these species in ways that are inhumane and wasteful, ultimately leading to a tremendous amount of food waste. As I researched further, I discovered a more humane method: utilising commercial and recreational hunting to meet the culling quota.
ABOVE: Chef Jo Barrett loads her gear off the helicopter, preparing for the hunt. The tough terrain of the South Island's mountain range poses a significant challenge for hunters.
A HUNT LIKE NO OTHER
When my friend Andrew asked me to join him on such a hunt, I couldn’t have said yes faster. Bow hunt for tahr during the rut in New Zealand? There’s no way I could pass on an opportunity like this. I’m not interested in trophy hunting for animals that are native to an area, but I knew about the history of tahr in the country, and the culling of it as an invasive species, and made the decision to partake. But as someone fairly new to bow hunting, or what Andrew affectionately calls an “adult on-set hunter,” I felt like I was skipping the line.
Tahr hunting on New Zealand’s South Island mountains is regarded as a pinnacle hunting experience on the world stage. The snow-capped peaks and steep, slippery inclines act as the backdrop against which the elusive tahr ballet over, their full manes floating in the wind. They were first introduced to New Zealand in 1904 for recreational hunting, but with no natural predators, their numbers grew and grew, impacting the native flora and ecosystem, and marking them as an invasive species. A population management plan was put into place in 1993 that allowed the use of recreation and commercial hunters to maintain a maximum population of 10,000 tahr. And even though they’re managed as pests, hunters train, plan, and obsess over the chance to be in range of these majestic creatures.
When I first started hunting almost 3 years ago, I put a boundary in place that I wouldn’t aim at animals before I’d been practising for 2 years — I didn’t want to cause pain with an incomplete shot. Even though I was well past that mark and had enough time on the range and in the wild to feel confident with my skills, graduating to the elusive tahr felt like a different level. Hunters spend years dreaming and preparing for trips like these, and while I’ve definitely had similar dreams, was it too soon for me to do this? But with all the self-doubt swirling in my mind, I knew this would be a chance to progress my skills, surrounded by hunters who were well-versed and more experienced. And if nothing else, I’d get to see Andrew in action and visit one of my favourite countries.
ABOVE: Male tahr are referred to as bulls, while females are called nannies. The rutting season for tahr occurs form May to mid-July. Photo by Blake Cinch.
THE FIRST BULL
Armed with my backpack, bow, and a pair of hunting boots, I flew into Queenstown with as much information as “we are choppering in, camping on the mountains for four days, and looking for tahr.” When I landed, I found Andrew and our guide TJ waiting for me at the airport, and immediately I felt right at home. While I’d never been to the South Island of New Zealand, TJ, with all the charming characteristics of a Kiwi, is the epitome of why New Zealanders are some of my favourite people..
We drove about an hour outside of Queenstown to spend the night in Wanaka before catching the helicopter early the following morning. The flight was short but steep as we flew between the snowed-covered peaks and found a flat clearing of tussock grasses and iced-over tarns to set up camp. The clearing leads to an incline up the range on one side and off the edge to another with an uninterrupted view of the neighbouring peaks. We decided to glass for tahr and it wasn’t long before the hiking poles were out, and the game of layering up and down began. Just as the light began to fade, we saw our first bull disappear into the distance and we decided to call it a day.
ABOVE: A danger to native flora, tahr threaten the livelihood of New Zealand's native species, and are viewed as invasive. Tahr are known fore their agility in steep and rocky areas, making the climb to find them steep and difficult.
IN PURSUIT
When it comes down to it, hunting is a series of educated decisions, skill, and luck. It was a decision to head in the direction of where we had seen the previous day's bull, skill to get us through the incredibly vertical and thick terrain, and bad luck that brought in bad weather just as we hit the peak. While we found the bull we were looking for and ranged it at 100m, the howling below zero winds made it impossible to even think about stalking in or taking a shot. As we descended back to camp, our headlamps the only things allowing us to watch our footing, we decided it’d be best to move to lower grounds tomorrow where the weather was safer and the possibility of more bulls might occur.
“HUNTING IS A SERIES OF EDUCATED DECISIONS, SKILL, AND LUCK.”
And luckily, we were right. The following afternoon, and the third day of the hunt, we found a bull (a male tahr) and started the hour-long stalk into a 40m range where it was standing with a nanny (a female tahr).
Hiding behind a shrub, sweat dripping off me as I attempted to control my panting, I drew back my bow, knocking the arrow, and took aim. Flying across the short gully in the hill, my arrow landed in the ground underneath the bull, right behind its front legs. The bull stopped grazing, looked in my direction for a moment, then returned to its task at hand. My eyeballs nearly fell out of my head. With brows raised and disbelief painted across my face, I knocked another arrow, adjusted my dial, and took aim for a second time. This time the arrow flew over the bull, brushing its mane, startling it just enough that it ran away— thankfully unharmed. As we started to descend, I replayed this moment hundreds of times, thinking of every excuse from my tape being out to my bow being bumped. But the reality was I just missed. That’s all there was to it. And while it hurt to acknowledge, I felt grateful it was a complete miss. Hurting an animal and not being able to retrieve it would be more painful than my bruised ego from missing a shot.
ABOVE: Beautiful and captivating, the Southern Alps acted as the background for the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
ANOTHER SHOT
The next day, I fought with the question of whether I was actually ready for tahr. So many hunters worked their way up to it, was I jumping in too quickly? But after talking through my hesitations with Andrew and the guide, I knew I had to shake off yesterday’s misses and continue on. Just like cooking, hunting takes skill and skills have to be practised. While missing my first shot yesterday was frustrating, it was up to me to decide if I’d take it as a loss or a learning experience. I went with the latter.
As the day progressed, I had two opportunities for a shot, but couldn’t bring myself to take them. Even though we were closing in on the end of our fourth and final day, I didn’t feel either shot was ethical. The distance was too far with too many animals moving around and the risk of not fully dispatching an animal was too high.
Finally, we closed on this bull surrounded by almost 20 nannies. Determined to achieve what I came here for, I weaved, ducked, jumped, and scurried as quietly as I could after the tahr for the next two hours, watching as it moved towards a tree line and an impassable canyon. The past four days had been spent hiking up and down the mountain with my bow and pack, and now on the last day of the hunt, the light was beginning to fade. With the bull less than 50m from the treeline, the chances of the tahr being recoverable were slim, even at a closer range. Disappointment and frustration crept in as my opportunity to take the shot with my bow slipped away, and I knew I had a choice to make — use my rifle or don’t take the shot.
“IT’S THE HUNTER’S PARADOX TO TAKE THE LIVES OF ANIMALS YOU CARE SO MUCH ABOUT.”
In that moment, I decided to take a shot with my rifle at 90m. I wanted to prove to myself I was able to make a decision to take the life of an animal I had spent so much time thinking about — no— obsessing over. It’s the hunter’s paradox to take the lives of animals you care so much about, but I wanted to see the bull and try the meat. So I took aim.
It was an instant drop — and I was relieved.
ABOVE: Jo and crew embarked on this hunt in late June, the peak of the tahr rut, and about when the weather becomes volatile and unpredictable. New Zealand is the only place in the world where you can enjoy tahr, as the meat is not permitted to leave the country.
THE SIMPLE ACT OF EATING
While my intention from the start was to use my bow, I still felt proud and grateful as we broke down the animal, taking every part with us. Descending in the dark with heavy packs, I felt the weight of the kill on my back, threaded with moments of remorse and excitement over what I had accomplished. It made me think about why I love hunting. There’s a challenge to it, both physically and mentally, with never-ending lessons involving technique and skill. But greatest of all, I love how the animal you're chasing teaches you so much about yourself — what you’re like under pressure, how far you can push yourself, and how you handle the stress of taking another life.
We rounded out the trip the way I had intended — with a meal. Because tahr meat can’t leave the confines of New Zealand, we used a previous group’s harvest while our tahr was saved to feed the next group coming through. I had never cooked tahr or even tried it prior to this trip, but was blown away by the taste. I had expected it to taste grassy like billy goat, but it took on more of a lamb profile, which made it perfect to use in the kofta. As I prepared the meal, I felt the beauty of the process, and all the hours of exhaustion, exhilaration, and satisfaction it took to get here.
While I wish I had used my bow to complete the hunt, I still feel really happy with how it all turned out. I achieved what I had set out to do, and the experience further cemented my belief that invasive species, with population management programs in place, present an opportunity for delicious sustainable proteins. Utilising the culling quote to redirect those lives for another purpose allows everyone to be a part of the solution to food waste with the simple act of eating. For me, it’s the perfect combination of the environment, hunting, food and most importantly cooking, and shows me how the wild continues to shape me in ways I’d never expect.
ABOVE: Unique to bulls, the mane of tahr blondes in the summer and darkens, growing full and puffy around its narrow face and curled horns, in the winter.
Jo Barrett is a world class chef and YETI ambassador. She has spent a majority of her career focused on sustainable cooking, and recently co-founded WILDPIE with the mission of bringing invasive species to the culinary space in the form of the iconic Australian meat pie.