More than 30 malnourished and dying cattle on a West Coast farm have been put down by MAF officials, after a member of the public raised the alarm.

According to a MAF official, nearly 1000 stock have been cleared from the prestigious Lake Brunner Station, about 30 kilometres inland from Greymouth.

MAF acted after receiving a tip-off on its toll-free animal welfare phone line.

Geoff Allen , Director of Compliance and Enforcement says MAF is still considering whether to bring a prosecution, but this could take time as they were still searching the property for animals.

“Our first priority is having to deal with the animals. We think about the prosecuting or possibility of prosecuting after we’ve dealt with the animals. We’re still working with the animals so really a decision as to whether or not we prosecute is still to be made.

“Some of the country is pretty rough, they call it Tiger country there; and some of the animals are more difficult to locate so we are just going through doing that now. We’ve actually used a helicopter to assist that and the number of animals that we have removed has grown and we have also unfortunately had to increase the number of animals we’ve had to destroy."

Katie Milne Federated Farmer's West Coast Provincial President says it’s pretty bad when MAF have to step in and take over management and get everything under control.

"It means you’ve sort of failed miserably really at your job of looking after animals.

“It will be month and months before the wash comes out of what actually will happen. Generally what will  happen is something will end up going through the courts.”  

Lake Brunner Station is part owned by the Turner family, which owns the Sleepyhead bed brand, but is leased out. The family bought the property in 1995 with plans to develop it as a tourist destination, including a golf course and an air strip.

Katie Milne says when you’re farming to keep productivity up, you’ve got to keep reinvesting as well. You can’t just take the money out and expect it to work.

“There’s no farmers involved as such. There is a manager and then all of the investors are city folk as far as I’m aware, and they’ve probably bitten off more than they can chew. The expectations were perhaps too high for what could be run there as a grazing block.

"So they’ve taken a fair bit of money out and their not putting back in the requirements that are needed to run it as it should’ve been."