Country Calendar - Tim Wallis

Television (Full Length Episode) – 1987

"Another adventure with Tim" is how one of Tim Wallis’ friends wryly puts it. The "adventure" came about when Wallis combined an “expensive toy”, and a noxious pest: using helicopters to recover deer shot by hunters in inaccessible South Island backblocks. Next deer were captured alive, to stock deer farms; a multi-million dollar industry was born. At the peak of his operations, Wallis had a fleet of 35 helicopters. The aerial shots in and around Milford Sound are magnificent. The stories he tells of his many crashes are 'she'll be right' Boy's Own classics.

I know I’m a hunter at heart and there have been many challenges that they have given me right throughout – from the days when I first shot to the helicopter days ... and really, when you’re looking at the farming side, in 20 years of farming, a noxious animal has really been changed into a national asset.
– Tim Wallis