Is meat allowed out of New Zealand?

After I got back I was told yes. 50 lbs was allowed in... It has been talked about a couple of times. Likely have to work out the details w/ the USFW. Bruce
 
How the heck are you going to keep it cold enough on that long ride home?
 
Sure going to be a task getting that meat back frozen.
 
I'm sure it doesn't go to waste but if I kill it I at least want to have SOME of the meat. I don't kill just for the horns. I spoke to a guy who said he brought some home in a cooler. Getting it hard frozen would be a must.
 
If you have it frozen and in a cooler, it shouldn't be a problem.
 
Why bother !!!
Red stag meat during the rut is not that good .
Late spring early autumn it is outstanding .
But they still have velvet then so I dont think you will be here then .
Ask your guide if you can nock over a fat young spiker if you want to take meat home .
 
razorsharp, as you can see my my avatar I have been to NZ and made good friends with people there. I see them each yr when they visit the usa. FYI red deer aka stag is farmed in NZ massively and it is big business. They sell the meat to the European market mainly, they strip the velvet and sell it to the chineese and they sell the antler powder also to the chineese. They give away a lot also to local people etc at least where I was. I was told some mornings to shoot cull animals for give aways to community stuff. Some excess aka nasty rut stag was frozen and fed to the herding dogs. None is wasted. It is a long flight to the west coast from aukland and then to where ever you are and would be expensive and I am sure usfws and customs usda will have fun with you in California so I say enjoy the venison there and forget it. PS tahr, fallow, chamois, goats, etc were frozen for the herding dogs where I was at. which island are you hunting they are very different and I have done both if you need info
 
We are heading to NZ in a month. I have looked into it. We are hunting the north island. We are going for 3 weeks.

I have found this company www.basecampsalamis.co.nz they have a export license and can turn your meat into salami if you have the time. They have tubs they can freeze the meat in for the flight home. We have a 15 hour flight from Auckland to Houston. If frozen I don't see a problem.

We bought one of these coolers https://www.rticcoolers.com/shop/coolers/softpak/RTIC-SoftPak-40-Camo It's like the yeti ones but a lot cheaper. The zipper and build of it are very tuff. It is also very big. We are going with 5 kids. One still in diapers. So we will pack it with diapers on the way down and meat coming back.

This is another good read I have found on the subject of bring stuff home from New Zealand. http://www.firstlite.com/campfire/2...lanning-an-unguided-trip-to-the-south-island/

Hopefully some of this info will help. If hunting the north island and have any questions let me know. I lived there for a year. Lot of fun things to go see after hunting. Also if taking a wife you can fly out of LAX and gontonthe Cook Islands on the way down for a couple nights.

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A cooler with dry Ice will be good for a min of 24 hours for your meat

Check with your airline, some will not allow dry ice. American Airlines won't allow it because of pressure build up as the ice evaporates. I used a Yeti cooler with the meat frozen and just plain ice to bring meat home from Texas last year, it still was frozen 4 days later.
 
We got our meat home with just a little paper work. Both in NZ and the US. Pretty easy. Brought back 150lbs
 
An old thread, but for the record I'm sure you can get lots of prime cut pork and beef for the all in price of shipping. Let's assume you already have a Yeti style type of cooler(s) that would survive the transit. There's the price of processing, extra shipping each way, an even larger fee for shipping coming home, dry ice, and paperwork. Lots of money and planning involved.

You can save that money and go on a separate hog and female cull hunt in texas

Just my thoughts
 
We got our meat butchered down there. Also had a couple dozen salami’s made. The rest of the meat they cut into roasts and steaks. They froze the meat for us and put in styrofoam boxes. At the airport there is a service to put your bags or box’s inside see through plastic bags. After that they put thick straps around the box’s. They made it no problem. Took us 48 hours to get home from the time the meat was put into the box’s out of the freezer. It all made it home safely. All not frozzen but nice and cold.

Yeti style coolers would eat up a lot of your weight aloud. We bought some Rtic soft sided coolers. But after seeing how well the box’s got packed we skipped using them.

We only had to pay for one box as luggage. Was around $50 US. Butcher was around $150 US.

We brought back 150lb of meat. Next time we go we will bring a lot more back. Worth the little bit of paper work.
 
maybe if you froze it into a single block in the freezer and put in in the cooler(a decent one) and duct taped that sucker up air tight it might stand a chance. I have never done it on that long of a flight but would be worth doing some more research on.


On further investigation it is pressurized and held at 7 degrees Celsius or around 45 degrees
 

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