This 1963 film looks at how the development of high country aviation is taking on the challenges presented by the South Island’s rugged geography. Piloted by war veterans, small aircraft parachute supplies into remote locations for Forest Service hut building and service lighthouses. Meanwhile helicopters and airlines open up opportunities for industry (venison, tourism, forestry, topdressing) and recreation (fishing, hunting). Good keen men, smokos and Swannies abound in this classically-filmed National Film Unit documentary.

This “best of” episode from Māori TV’s long-running te reo food show revisits stories that presenter Peter Peeti has shot throughout the North Island. It‘s a celebration of food harvested from the land, rivers and sea, ranging from stingrays on the East Coast and the Tūhoe Wild Food Festival at Waimana, to goat hunting in Taranaki and fishing on Parengarenga Harbour. Peeti’s korero with the people of the land is equally important, and his giggle is worthy of Billy T. Recipes include mussel fritters, baked hapuka, venison casserole and curried snapper.

This 1983 documentary looks at the (then booming) export of deer antler velvet from New Zealand farms to Asia where the “horns of gold” are highly valued as an aphrodisiac and cure-all tonic. The doco captures the hazards of the trade: from bulldogging (hunters leaping from helicopter skids onto wild deer), to volatile markets in Hong Kong and Korea. The players include a triad of Asian middlemen “who make the millions”, and Kiwi deer entrepreneur Tim Wallis, who led a delegation of farmers to China in 1981 to discover the secret of the Eastern love potion. 

Whanganui-born chef Peter Gordon helmed the Sugar Club in Wellington in the 80s, before moving to the UK and started up a series of acclaimed restaurants, including Providores and Tapa Room (opened shortly after this doco was made). Plaudits as a pioneer of ‘fusion’ cooking followed. Here the ‘kai magpie’, takes in everything from paw paw to paua on a homecoming taste trip: raw fish in Rarotonga, Waikato River 'tuna', deer at Wairarapa’s Te Parae, Seresin organic olive oil, Marlborough koura, Stewart Island oysters, and more. The one-off special screened on TV One and on BBC2.

This award-winning series took Wellington chefs Al Brown and Steve Logan out of their fine-dining restaurant, to experience the local in 'locally sourced' kai. In this second episode, Al and Steve head to Tangahoe up the Whanganui River, looking for wild pig with a couple of good keen men — Baldy and Moon. Logan is with the dogs on the boar hunt; while Al's on veggies at the markets, before hitching a flying fox to sample some freshly baked organic kumara bread en route up river. The bush tucker result? Cider braised pork belly with kumara and corn mash.

Introduced to New Zealand in 1851, red deer soon became controversial residents: sport for hunters, but despised by farmers and conservationists for the damage they caused. First targeted by government cullers in the 1930s, by the 60s they were shot by commercial operators for venison export. Directed by Bruce Morrison and Keith Hunter, this award-winning documentary catches up with the hunt in the 70s, when deer for farming – dramatically caught alive, from helicopters – was a multi-million dollar gold rush. Different versions of the film were made for overseas markets.

Lynda Topp's alter ego and all-round-good-Kiwi-bloke, Ken Moller, presents this homespun, informative and gently satirical series that journeys around some of New Zealand's most spectacular hunting and fishing spots. In this central North Island-set episode, Ken and river rafting guide Garth Oakden go catch-and-release fly fishing in Tongariro National Park; and another colourful personality, Lady Hunter (Emma Lange) goes helicopter sika stag shooting in the Kawekas. 'Ken's Camp Kitchen' features venison casserole.  

This homespun, informative and gently satirical hunting and fishing series is presented by good kiwi bloke Ken Moller (Lynda Topp from the Topp Twins). With alpine guide, Queenstown radio DJ and crack shot Emma Lange, aka Lady Hunter, Ken takes viewers on armchair adventures to some of New Zealand's most spectacular wilderness regions where they hunt sika stag, fish for feisty rainbow trout and "bloody beautiful browns". Closing segment Ken's Camp Kitchen features "gastronomical delights" such as venison casserole.