If you are looking for a cheap ride, horses in Wairoa are going to auction for $20 to $100 a pop.
Wairoa District Council auctioned off nine horses in 2020, bringing in $450 that went towards offsetting the cost of impounding the animals. Photo: Supplied / Wairoa District Council
It comes as Wairoa District Council attempts to tackle horses and cattle straying on to roads and the "very real danger" they pose to drivers.
Two horses are in the pound and waiting to be auctioned off today. Nine horses were auctioned off in 2020, for a total of $450.
Wairoa District Council interim chief executive Kitea Tipuna said the "few dollars" the council received from auctions offset a "small fraction" of the cost of impounding the horses.
From July 2020, staff reported an upsurge in stock callouts which included horses as well as cattle.
They identified "problematic" areas and undertook "targeted operations" to seize a number of horses.
Tipuna said the horses targeted in these operations were "well known" to the council and had been found wandering in the same areas many times in the past.
"Staff have been called several times to take the horses off the road and when the horse owners are known they have been warned and advised to keep their horses in a stock proof paddock."
To impound the horses, additional staff members were brought in to assist, and a transport company was used to move them to the council stock pound on Frasertown Rd.
The council had recently impounded horses wandering around Te Uhi Hill, Te Uhi Pa Rd, Kiwi Rd and in Mahia.
"They are domesticated horses. In some cases the owners were identified but in other cases we couldn't identify the owners," Tipuna said.
"Uncontrolled horses which wander, particularly on roads, pose a very real danger to motorists."
The council impounded 11 horses including three foals in 2020, of which nine were impounded around Te Uhi Pa Road/Kiwi Rd and two in Mahia.
Impounded horses are advertised in the Wairoa Star for seven days to give owners a chance to claim them before being auctioned on day eight. The auction is also advertised to the public.
Livestock straying on to roads are posing similar issues to authorities in neighbouring Tairāwhiti, with a Waka Kotahi New Zealand Transport Agency boss last month threatening to send stock found on highways down to Wairoa.
"We're even going to explore whether we just impound all the stock and take them down to the yards at Wairoa," NZTA regional relationships director Emma Speight said at a regional transport meeting in Gisborne on 3 December.
There had been 29 crashes on roads in Tairāwhiti caused by livestock over the past 20 years, according to Ministry of Transport data.
One crash was fatal, four were serious, and the rest were considered minor.
All but three crashes occurred when the conditions were recorded as "dark" by the reporting police officer.
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