Tactical options reports are filled out by police when force is used.
The Otago Daily Times requested the reports filed in the Southern police district where the subject was an animal, for the 18 months to the end of 2022.
A total of 11 animals were shot and five dogs were pepper sprayed.
Two armed and armoured officers in the Otago Coastal area were patrolling as part of an anti-poaching operation before a hunting competition.
They rounded a corner and collided with a 20kg ginger and black pig which had been foraging with others on the roadside.
The pig, "squealing in agony", was stuck in a fence with possibly broken back legs until an officer dispatched the pig with three shots to its head.
A Department of Conservation (Doc) ranger called on Otago Coastal area staff to assist with euthanising a sick or injured New Zealand fur seal found at the edge of Oamaru Harbour in January last year.
Department of Conservation Coastal Otago operations manager Annie Wallace said the seal was sick and emaciated, probably due to natural causes.
Two police constables spoke with Doc staff who confirmed the seal was dying and there was nobody available from the department who could euthanise it.
The seal was shot in the centre of the head twice, using a police-issue assault rifle.
Despite wearing body armour the constable reported feeling "extremely unsafe" while carrying out the shooting.
The report was signed off by the constable’s supervisor, who said no further action was required.
A police spokeswoman said the officer feeling extremely unsafe was a "clerical issue" which was not picked up on review, but had no bearing on the outcome of the incident.
She declined to comment when asked if police could be trusted to fill out the use-of-force forms accurately.
A constable in the Otago Lakes area pepper sprayed a dog after pulling over a wanted driver who refused to get out when placed under arrest.
A woman arrived and began arguing with the officer.
"She then began referring to the fact I look like I have just left high school and that I was a rookie," the constable said.
The officer, concerned more of the man’s associates would intervene before backup could arrive, got a handcuff on one of the man’s wrists and wrestled him out on to the grass verge, where the woman pushed him.
A dog, which the officer had not seen in the car, ran up and bit the constable on his ankle.
The officer pepper sprayed the dog and, noticing the woman was preparing to punch him in the face, pepper sprayed her, too.
He then pepper sprayed the man, whom he was able to handcuff fully and escort to the station.
Two "very large" bull mastiffs were pepper sprayed by a constable in Southland as two officers conducted a bail check.
As they were getting out in the dark they heard growling in the background, which came from two large bull mastiffs which advanced until pepper spray was used.
Later, the officers spoke to their owner who apologised, saying the dogs had hopped the fence by jumping on the trampoline.
A two-vehicle crash involving three cows in the Otago Coastal area caused a broken leg to one, requiring nine rounds from a police rifle to euthanise it.
Another crash in the the Otago Lakes Central area resulted in about 100 cattle breaking out on to a road, where one was hit by a car and shot at the request of a passing vet.
Four deer were shot after they were hit by cars.
Another was shot because it was on the roadside at dusk and posed a risk to traffic, and a stag on the advice of a vet because it was stuck in some flax bushes.
Police withheld the locations and dates of the incidents, claiming it would prejudice privacy or the maintenance of the law.
A complaint has been laid with the Ombudsman’s office.
