Ranger's seen it all looking after his own corner of the country
Saturday, 3 November 2018
While looking after his isolated corner of the North Island this wildlife ranger has seen everything from dead bodies sitting by the roadside, to pods of stranded sperm whales.
Joe Hansen is one of the Department of Conservation's longest serving rangers and spent a large chunk of his life presiding over Aorangi Forest Park in South Wairarapa.
This wild block of coast and bush is a hunter's paradise and nobody knows it better than Hansen who was the first and last live-in ranger stationed at Te Kopi.
After 50 years, it was the 67-year-old's last day with DOC on Friday.
**READ MORE:
* Nothing boring about a walk to Boar Inn to hear the kiwi calling
* Proposal to bring back weka to Lower North Island
* Samples taken from blue whale carcass washed up on Wairarapa coast
* Department of Conservation trains more rangers in mercy killing of stranded sperm whales**
The Aorangis are a favourite destination of deerstalkers with a healthy herd of wild red deer and favourably dry conditions for stalking.
'There's nothing like sneaking around the bush and shooting a deer in home territory,' Hansen said.
As the sole member of the only Government agency based down on the coast he was 'part caretaker, part sheriff' serving as de facto police, fire service and fisheries officer.
He had a hand helping bring life into the world and also preserving the dignity of those who had died.
Once he was called upon to drive his 4WD through floods to pick up a pregnant woman in labour at Ngawi and take her to an ambulance waiting at the accessible end of the road.
Another time Hansen waited with the body of a man who had died in a car crash the night before. Hansen was heading along the coast road when he saw the wheels of an upturned vehicle poking out of the bush.
He spotted a man sitting down on the bank, but a closer look revealed the driver, who had managed to get out of the crashed vehicle, had died overnight of his injuries.
His job was also to take care of wildlife - living or dead.
Six sperm whales beached themselves in a bay around the way which posed the difficult logistical problem of how to dispose of the carcasses. In the end they buried them on the beach using large bulldozers.
One incident he recalls ended up being a turning point in the harrowing 2003 Coral Burrows case.
From a search helicopter, he spotted the missing Featherston schoolgirl's backpack floating down a swollen creek. The key piece of evidence transformed the operation from a missing persons investigation into a murder inquiry.
Always a keen hunter, it was his love of the outdoors that led him to applying for a role with the New Zealand Forest Service in 1968.
Once graduated as a junior woodsman he was paid the not-so-princely sum of $950 annually, but it was a lifestyle he cherished.
His passions beyond hunting and the great outdoors included a bit of footy. He propped for Wairarapa-Bush against the British Lions during their 1977 tour.
He was offered the role of forest foreman of the Aorangis in 1974 where he stayed and brought up his family with wife Carol until the role was disestablished in 1999.
Hansen later moved to Masterton and worked out of DOC's Wairarapa base on South Road.
Hansen was honoured by Rural Fire and Police Search and Rescue for his 50 years service with those organisations on Thursday.