Bambi a boon in post-flood roundup

• Published date: 24 May 2023
• Publication title: Central Rural Life

Lyn Butterick’s headstrong pet hind had been the bane of her husband Darryl’s life until she earned her keep in the weeks after 2021 floodwaters swept livestock, fences and farm soils off their Plains Pastoral farm at Greenstreet

Most of their deer herd, raised for trophy hunting and velvet, bolted for one of the branches of the Ashburton River. Just about all of their sire stags perished among a total of 30 deer, including hinds and weaners, that drowned or were never seen again.

They managed to get many of the surviving animals back through river searches by vehicle or helicopter and their deer-detecting hind.

‘‘The pet hind has been a pain in the ass all her life,’’ says Mr Butterick. ‘‘But she probably hooked 30-odd deer back.

‘‘Once we’d got fenced in a bit we’d kick her out and she would just cruise around here and you’d go find her in the morning and she’d be parked up and might have two or three or half a dozen with her. We’d slide them in a paddock and kick her out again. So she was worth her weight in gold for the first time in her life.’’

Mr Butterick revealed Bambi’s role in rounding up the escapees at a field day during the Deer Industry New Zealand conference in Ashburton.

The Buttericks retrieved the last deer in the river scrub six to seven weeks after the May flood.

‘‘To be fair there was starting to get [to be] a lot more traffic around the river then, so we stopped putting Bambi out because we thought some clown might smoke her.’’

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