Hunting for Tai Rāwhiti - "I don't see deer, I see a food bag"

It's the crack of dawn just after the roar and three hunters and their dogs are sidling along a ridge on the edge of a forest. 

Mist cloaks the valley below and in the distance is the sacred maunga, Hikurangi.

Lisa, Matt and 16-year-old Sam are stalking deer on Puketoro Station, one of Tairāwhiti's landmark sheep and beef stations on the edge of the Raukumara Range.

They're there not only for the thrill of the hunt but also to stock the region's food banks which are under heavy demand in the cyclone-ravaged region.

Puketoro's owners have already culled hundreds of deer from the 8500-hectare station on rugged hill country, inland from Tokomaru Bay.

The population has exploded in recent years but still more keep coming, jumping in from conservation lands next door and feasting on the farm's pasture.

The animals may be pests, depriving the sheep and beef cattle of feed, but their meat is helping nourish hundreds of people through the Kaiwhakangau hunt-to-give initiative, the brainchild of Lisa Daunton, Tui Keenan and Puketoro co-owner Leigh McNeil.

Daunton bones the beasts and the meat is then processed by a certified butcher before being packed into 1kg bags and donated to food banks.

They aim to get four to 12 deer every five weeks and estimate that about 350 families will get a kilo of fresh venison after each hunt.

"When I'm sitting on a hill looking out at deer, I'm not looking at a deer, I'm looking out at food bags for people,"  Daunton said.

"It's a great feeling because you're helping people."

The project is the philanthropic side of the Dauntons' and Keenans' Kaiwhakangau brand, specialising in hunting wear for women.

Tui Keenan not only hunts but helps distribute the meat. She knows how big the need is through her grassroots community work.

"Everything times a hundred, what is on the news.

"The need is definitely there and at our doorstep and so are the deer."

"We get to see the meat going to where it's needed for example to the elderly who are too shy to ask for help or won't ask for help. They'll just make do with what they've got."

Delivering meat parcels also provides an "in" to help families with other problems, she said.

"It's always hard to get in the door especially when you're rocking on up in a government-looking car with a lanyard around your neck. That's an instant barrier.

"It's like an entry ticket to helping these families with their whole life."

Back on the farm, the hunters find a position on a knoll with a good view of a small herd of deer which have popped out of the forest for an early morning feed.

Sam Fisher and Matt Greenland get down low and take aim, their dogs whimpering beside them.

The shots echo through the forest. One is down.  

"A lot of people don't like what we do - 'we're shooting Bambi'," Daunton said.

But they are humane kills, she explained, and the alternative is being poisoned by 1080 or culled from a helicopter.

"They're a pest and they're a wonderful organic high-in-iron source of meat, so, no, I don't get emotional at all about shooting them."

"You do have your moments. We're not hard arses. We're respectful and we love these animals."

Kaiwhakangau is accepting donations for their hunt-to-give mahi here.