But he took to the air as a fixed-wing hunter pilot and went on to become one of the most experienced helicopter pilots in the deer recovery business.
Dick Deaker flew through the heyday of deer recovery for venison and then live capture to supply the country’s burgeoning deer farming industry. Now in his mid-60s, he’s still flying.
The story of his life is punctuated with accounts of many of his contemporaries. Much of it is told in Deaker’s own words, painting a picture of the rough rugged lifestyle, the near misses and the changes that occurred in the wild deer population.
A chapter devoted to the women behind the men provides an insight into the pressure their partners’ dangerous profession placed on them and the inevitable marriage breakdowns.
A surprise comes towards the end of the book where Marshall explores Deaker’s experience working with the Department of Internal Affairs’ Wildlife Service and the Department of Conservation in programmes to rejuvenate takahe and kakapo populations in the wild.
Deaker’s critical views on the bureaucracy’s approach to people’s rights to public conservation lands and the role of helicopters in recreational hunting are also revealing, as are the dramatic photographs which are spread through the book.
Recollections by former policeman and search and rescue co-ordinator Lloyd Matheson, who was posted to Te Anau in 1977, also provide an insight into the culture that pervaded.
A spell of bad weather, he says in the book, that grounded the helicopters, and was also bad enough to mean the shearing gangs couldn’t work, was a recipe for trouble especially when North Island shearing gangs were in the district.
Add crayfishmen and Manapouri power scheme tunnellers to the mix and the situation could become quite explosive as the different groups used to bait each other until fights erupted.
