Cattle and sheep in the wild

Although the first recorded successful introduction of sheep and cattle was that made by Marsden and the missionaries, it is probable that the whalers and sealers may have kept some of these animals at their shore stations. When the settlers arrived in the 1840s cattle and sheep were allowed to graze wherever they could find pasturing. It was inevitable that some of these animals would escape and become wild. This happened to the extent that in the 1870s settlers in Canterbury complained of the herds of wild cattle that kept on jumping fences and devastating their crops.

By the '80s wild cattle and sheep were such a nuisance that cattle hunting became an organised sport. With the spread of organised settlement, however, these herds became very greatly reduced, so that now the only significant numbers of feral sheep and cattle are on the sub-Antarctic islands, where they were originally landed late last century to provide food for castaways.