Chamois — Tim Park, iNaturalist — Arthur’s Pass National Park · CC BY 4.0

Rupicapra rupicapra

Best season: April and May rut; visible year-round
When they move: Feeding morning and evening, moving through the day
Country: Alpine and sub-alpine tussock and scree, South Island
How hard: Hard. Sharper-sighted than tahr and far more mobile.

How they behave, and what that means

Solitary or in very small groups, and extremely mobile - a chamois will cross terrain you cannot in minutes. Eyesight is exceptional. They tend to move rather than hide when suspicious.

Sign to look for

Small sharp prints on scree, animals silhouetted on ridges, and rapid movement across faces

Tips

Range carefully - open country makes everything look closer than it is.
They often move up and across rather than straight away. Watch where they go.
A stationary chamois is usually already watching you.
Lighter than tahr, so a solo carry-out is realistic.

Where you’ll find them

Sub-alpine and alpine faces, often on the same country as tahr but ranging more widely. Both sexes carry hooked horns.

Dogs and 1080

Check the 1080 map for the access valleys rather than the tops themselves.

Check 1080 operations

Why people shoot them

Trophy and meat, alongside official control.

Recreational hunters take tahr and chamois for the animal and for the meat — chamois is well regarded, tahr is variable and worth taking off a young animal. DOC also runs its own tahr control, where animals are shot and left, which is a different activity from yours and sometimes causes friction.

What the landowner wants

Most of this is on public conservation land rather than a farm, so the permission conversation is with DOC rather than a neighbour.

What to shoot a chamois with

Something flat-shooting you can hold steady in wind. .270, 7mm-08 and .308 are common; heavier magnums are popular for tahr.

Alpine country: long shots, steep angles up and down, and wind doing something different at the animal than at you. Reach and a bullet that still expands at distance matter more than power at fifty metres. Recoil you can shoot well matters more than either.

What people use

.270 Win — the traditional New Zealand tops rifle
7mm-08 or .308 Win — less recoil, easier to shoot well
7mm Rem Mag, .30-06 or a .300 magnum — more reach and more authority on a big bull tahr
6.5 Creedmoor — increasingly common, light recoil, good ballistics

Watch out

A steep uphill or downhill shot hits higher than the sight picture suggests, and an animal on a face can drop a long way before you reach it. Plan the recovery before you shoot.

On public conservation land, there is a legal minimum

Only centre fire rifles of calibre .222 Remington or larger may be used for hunting, or crossbows and bows that meet the minimum standard specified by DOC.

Hunting with any shotgun, rimfire rifle, .17 or .22 hornet calibre, air rifle or tracer and incendiary type ammunition is forbidden.

That is DOC’s hunting permit condition, and it applies wherever the permit does. On private land the landowner sets the terms — but the reason for the rule does not change with the fence line. Read the permit conditions

Read further

Effective game killing — Terminal Ballistics Research Nathan Foster, in Taranaki, has spent decades documenting what bullets actually do to these animals — red deer, tahr, chamois, sika, pigs, goats. If you read one thing about this, read him rather than an overseas chart built around whitetail and elk. He sells books alongside the free knowledge base, which is worth knowing; the research is still the best there is.
Cartridge-by-cartridge research Already own a rifle? Start here and read about what you have, rather than about what to buy.
Matching cartridge to game — Hunter-ed The platform US state agencies use for hunter education. Good on the principle.

These are starting points, not prescriptions. Shot placement and bullet construction beat calibre nearly every time, and a rifle you shoot well beats a more powerful one you flinch with — which is an argument for practising more, not for taking less gun.

After the shot

You are a long way from the road, so decide what comes out.

Standing over it: Get it off the snow and out of the sun, then work out honestly what you can carry down. Loading a pack past what you can descend safely with is how people get hurt on this ground.
Eating it: Both are eaten, and young animals are decent — a mature bull tahr in the rut is strong. Most hunters take the back steaks and the hindquarters and are straight about leaving the rest.

Getting it out, butchered, and what the law says about selling it

Going with someone who knows it

Chamois — “shammy” to most Kiwi hunters — use the same alpine and sub-alpine country as tahr and often the steeper, more broken parts of it — scree, scrub gut and rock. Much of it is a long way from a road end, so the walk in is a day of the trip at each end and the weather has to be lived with rather than driven away from.

Chamois are the more alert of the two. They usually see you first and they leave properly — over a ridge and gone. Shots across a gut at a distance you have not practised are normal, which is why the animal is a poor place to find out what your rifle does past 200 metres.

Go with an experienced hunter
Going with someone who has hunted the range before shortens the learning by seasons — where chamois hold in the middle of the day, which faces they feed on, and which gut you can actually cross. NZDA branches are the usual way in.
The usual way in is a NZDA branch . Branches run trips, and taking newer hunters out is part of what they are for. It costs a subscription and your share of the petrol.
Hire a guide
Guided chamois hunts are common, often alongside tahr in the same trip. What you are buying is the ground knowledge and, frequently, the access — the same as tahr.
How to check one out
Anyone guiding you on public conservation land must hold a DOC concession, or be working under the NZPHGA collective concession as an outfitter member. Ask which of the two it is. A guide who cannot answer that plainly is either working on private land — fine, but then ask whose — or working where they should not be.
DOC on concessions · NZ Professional Hunting Guides Association · their member list
Build up to it yourself
Chamois are a reasonable step up for someone already comfortable in the bush and fit for the tops. Do the country in summer first, without a rifle, and find out what you can actually cover in a day before you plan a hunt around it.

We list no guides, recommend nobody, and take no commission from anyone. That is why the section above gives you a test to apply rather than a name to ring — a recommendation from us would be worth less than a concession you can check.

Helicopters, and what they do to your chances

Chamois are taken both commercially and by aerial trophy hunting, in the same country you walk into.

WARO — wild animal recovery operations — is commercial helicopter hunting on public conservation land, run under concession from DOC, mostly recovering carcasses for the venison trade. It has been part of New Zealand back country since the 1970s. In the South Island the concession covers chamois alongside deer, pig and goat. Chamois are also taken under AATH permits, the heli-hunting concession that flies clients into the tops.

What it means on the ground

What ground hunters consistently report afterwards is not just fewer animals but different ones: survivors that hold in bush edge and broken ground through the day, feed at night, and clear out at the first sound of a rotor. A block worked recently can feel empty while still holding deer. Chamois were alert to begin with, and country that has been worked from the air holds animals that leave earlier and further.

The part you can plan around

It is not a free-for-all, and the limits are published. DOC’s land schedule sets where recovery may operate, closes some areas to it year-round, and sets exclusion periods when the machines stand down — at a minimum over Christmas, the Roar and Easter. Those periods exist precisely so ground hunters get a clear run, which makes them worth planning around.

Where the detail lives

DOC: wild animal recovery operations The concession, the land schedule and the maps that define where it may operate.
DOC: aerially assisted trophy hunting The trophy heli-hunting concession — units and dates.
Game Animal Council on WARO Plain background and the case for changing how it is managed.

We cannot tell you whether a particular block was flown last month — that is not published in a form anyone can map, and we would rather say so than let the silence read as an all-clear.

Hunting chamois on public conservation land

Permits, ballots, restricted areas and which herds are managed how are DOC’s to set, and they change. This is their page for this animal.

DOC: hunting chamois

Before you go

Seasons, permits, firearms rules and area closures differ by region and by land status, and they change. We don’t publish those — a stale copy of a rule is worse than none. We do map the land itself: boundaries, public conservation land and unformed legal roads. So find the country here, and check the rules with whoever sets them:

Permits for public land Department of ConservationA permit is required to hunt public conservation land, and conditions vary by block.
Firearms licence and rules Te Tari Pūreke — Firearms Safety AuthorityLicensing, storage, and what you may carry and where.
What a paper road lets you do Herenga ā Nuku AotearoaThe Outdoor Access Commission. They define what an unformed legal road, a marginal strip or an easement actually entitles you to — passage is not permission to hunt, and the land either side stays private.Find one on our map
Regional pest and hunting rules Your regional or district councilPest management plans, wallaby containment areas, and vehicle access on unformed roads.

And on private land, the landowner sets the conditions — times, areas, and which animals they want taken. Ask, and stick to what they say.

And whatever the rules say

Nobody regulates this part, so nobody else will tell you. It is what experienced hunters do without thinking about it.

Identify your target beyond all doubtNot the shape, not the colour, not the sound, not the movement — the animal. Most people killed hunting in New Zealand are shot by another hunter who was sure. If you are talking yourself into it, that is the answer.
Assume you are spending the night outOn every trip, including the two-hour one. Carry a survival bag, a warm layer that works wet, food you do not intend to eat and a head torch with spare batteries. People are late constantly and it only matters when they are not carrying this.
Assume you are getting wetRain, river, or sweat — one of the three, every time. Wool or synthetic next to the skin and never cotton, which stops insulating the moment it is damp and then takes your heat. Keep one dry layer sealed in a bag and do not touch it until you need it.
Carry a knife, and a way to make fireThe knife is for the animal, and for cutting yourself free of something, and for making a shelter. Fire is what turns a bad night into an uncomfortable one. Both live on you, not in the pack you might put down.
Carry a PLBThere is no cell coverage where you are going. A personal locator beacon is the difference between a search and a rescue, they can be hired cheaply, and it is the single most useful thing in the pack. Take it out of the pack lid and put it on you.
If you are unsure about the river, do not cross itDrowning is the other thing that kills hunters here. A river that is up will still be up in the morning, and it comes down faster than you think. Waiting is almost always available; crossing is not always survivable.
Tell someone, and be honest about the timeNot the time you hope to be out — the time after which something has gone wrong. Then mark yourself back, because a search that starts for somebody sitting in the pub is a search that will not be taken seriously next time.

The firearms rules themselves are in the Firearms Safety Code , and Mountain Safety Council teach the bush side properly. Both are worth an evening before your first trip somewhere new.

Thermals, on public conservation land

Three separate rules that get argued about as though they were one. These are conditions of a DOC hunting permit, so they apply to public conservation land — every line in quotation marks below is DOC’s wording, not ours.

Permitted: Hand-held, in daylight, to find animalsHand-held monocular and binocular thermal imaging equipment is permitted for the use of searching and locating wild animals during daylight hours.
Prohibited: Anything mounted on the rifleHunting or discharging a firearm that has thermal imaging, night vision, or spotlight equipment attached.
Prohibited: After dark, at allHaving a loaded firearm or discharging a firearm during the hours of darkness (half an hour after sunset to half an hour before sunrise).
Prohibited: Spotlights and any other artificial lightHunting using spotlights, torches, night vision equipment, vehicle headlights, or any other artificial light source.

It locates. It does not identify.

Read the permitted wording again: searching and locating. A thermal tells you something warm is there, not what it is. DOC’s own line when they announced the change was that hunters “will then still need to identify their target beyond all doubt before taking their shot”, and that has not moved.

Check the date on whatever you were told. Hand-held thermal only became permitted on 1 June 2024. A lot of confident advice still in circulation predates that — and a lot of people heard “thermals are legal now” and took it to mean the one on the rifle.

On private land there is no DOC permit, so these conditions are not what governs. The landowner sets the terms and every firearms and target-identification rule applies exactly as it does anywhere else. We are not going to tell you more than that, because it would be us guessing about your block.

DOC’s hunting permit conditions · the announcement, 31 May 2024 · if DOC has changed this and we have not, tell us.