Sika Show- August
Australasia’s most significant and largest hunting trade show and Sika competition is less than two months away and organisers are still fielding calls from those keen to exhibit, even though the show sold out weeks ago.
It’s a much-awaited event and SIKA Show director, Mark Bridgman, says the show’s success is as much to do with passion as with the extensive range of prizes and exhibitors, that continues to grow each year. The SIKA show also gives mates an opportunity to get together and for those unfamiliar with hunting, the show is a chance to discover what hunting is all about.
Now held at Taupō’s Event Centre, the SIKA Show started back in 1993 and was held at the nearby Spa Hotel. It was a fairly low-key affair, the result of a conversation between noted Sika hunter Neil Philpott and wildlife biologist Cam Speedy, who worked for DOC at the time. Then, as now, the competition aimed to get better information and data on the health of the central North Island Sika herd, using jaw analysis as a tool.
Volunteers from the Taupo branch of NZDA provided the Douglas Score measurers and have been doing so ever since. With an emphasis on symmetry, the Douglas Score is the chief scoring system used for trophies caught in the wild throughout the Pacific and Australasia. The scoring system was developed by Norman Douglas, a Waikato member of NZDA who had greatly appreciated symmetry and balance in nature. The Douglas Score was eventually adopted as the national organisation’s official measuring system in 1959.
Mark Bridgman is keen to stress that it’s not the biggest or best trophy SIKA stag that wins prizes in the competition.
“The show is about participation and having the biggest is not always the best,” he says, adding a sports analogy: “While it’s nice to win, it’s just as good to get out and do it.”
There is a range of categories for prizes in the competition, including ‘most unusual head’, two women’s categories, a DOC prize for the best representative Sika head shot on public conservation land and many more including the ‘Judge’s Choice’ and ‘random draw’.
“To get useful information you need to collect from a broad range of data,” says Mark Bridgman. “This means that all entries to the SIKA Show are valuable for providing detail to wildlife managers that will eventually feed back to hunting.”
The competition’s not just about Sika deer either. An ‘All Species’ categories includes Hybrid deer, Goat Chamois, Tahr, pigs, wild sheep, Samba, Rusa, Whitetail and Fallow. Scenic, game, birds and human interest photos can also win prizes.
The SIKA show continues to showcase science and information on SIKA deer. A collaborative study, headed by Cam Speedy of Wildlife Management Associates with funding from a range of organisations and individuals, including the SIKA show, Hunters and Habitats and Poronui hunting has been tracking SIKA stags for just over 12 months in the Taharua Valley.