After years of lobbying, farmers have finally been given permission to cull Canada Geese.

Farmers have long regarded Canada Geese as a serious pest on their properties.  Flocks of the huge birds eat or foul large amounts of pasture.

Farmers say two or three geese can eat the same amount of grass as a single sheep.

But Conservation Minister Kate Wilkinson has finally lifted the protected game bird status of Canada Geese, and landowners and aviation managers can cull the birds themselves.

Fish and Game will no longer manage Canada Geese as a hunting resource and farmers won't need a permit to shoot them.

Federated Farmers' game spokesperson Donald Aubrey says the organisation has been calling for the protected game status to be removed for years

“The removal of protection is something that will be appreciated by regional councils, the department of conservation and the aviation industry as well, where there has been problems with Canada Geese in the past.”

The Fish and Game Council’s Nelson Marlborough manager Neil Deans says he is disappointed by the announcement.

“I’m just mystified, flummoxed.

 “We’ve gone from a regime which may not be perfect but fundamentally gets the people who want to kill the geese – that’s hunters – to places where they can do that, to a system where the farmers will have to do this on their own.”

Neil Deans says Fish and Game and hunters were managing numbers and he believes the change will see populations explode.

“We are just struggling to believe that the Minister can make this decision on what can only be poor advice.

“If it’s a political decision, she’s entitled to do that, but that has to stand scrutiny, and I don’t think it does.”