Live capture by net gun

A New Zealand invention, the net gun was initially hand-held and later helicopter-mounted. Aiming the gun required excellent flying skills and sometimes dangerous manoeuvres, especially as deer numbers fell and the animals were more difficult to get close to. Net guns – unlike dart guns – avoided the need for drug licences, although the deer were often sedated after capture while being transported back to base.

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Canterbury University Press

Reference: David Yerex, Deer: the New Zealand story. Christchurch: Canterbury University Press, 2001, p. 93

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Comments

Bronwyn Smith
21 February 2011

Murray Ernest Jones, of Takaka, New Zealand, was the inventor and developer of the first net gun. An Engineer by trade, Murray had a share in a helicopter with a few friends. They spent many hours after deer in the high country. One such trip ending in the Bell helicopter crashing into a gully. He had an idea for a better way to capture deer out of the helicopter and he set about developing a working prototype. An idea developed by a small-town Kiwi has gone on to become a worldclass product. A trusting man, Murray showed his friends and demonstrated the new invention. It was then that one of these friends had the idea patented without Murray's knowledge and without any credit to Murray.

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Story: Deer and deer farming