Queenstown police and the Department of Conservation are wasting "vast amounts of time" looking for potentially overdue walkers and are pleading with foreign and domestic trampers to return their Doc track intention stubs.
More than 80 separate groups of trampers and walkers over the peak of the two-month summer season generally did not return their intention stubs, which resulted in hundreds of man-hours wasted looking for people, without actually launching any search-and-rescue operation, Doc programme manager for community relations John Roberts said yesterday when contacted.
"Ninety-nine percent of people turn up and are fine. But there's always the chance 1% are genuinely lost," Mr Roberts said.
From October 2007 to April in 2008 there were 836 intention forms filled out at Doc's Glenorchy office, but 81 "non-returnees" had to be chased up.
The 2008-09 season was already running with similar numbers, Mr Roberts said.
"It's the height of the season. Three to four groups a day are not returning stubs [prompting] up to three hours' work for staff each day," he said.
Similarly, three days ago Queenstown police spent most of the day looking for four separate groups, having to canvas motels, car rental firms, backpackers and the airport in efforts to trace people and double check they had returned safely and were not overdue, Sergeant Andy Grant said.
Mr Roberts was not aware of search-and-rescue authorities having recently been alerted to look for people who had not returned their intention-form stubs.
Doc's Glenorchy office, where most backcountry activities start, issues the intention forms, which are filled in before trampers head away.
Trampers take a stub off the form, which is meant to be returned to the Doc Glenorchy or Queenstown offices on their return and checked off against the original form.
Mr Roberts said extra information on the form, such as next known address, email or cellphone numbers would assist both Doc and the police to determine if someone was overdue.
"If the trampers aren't found and they are past the `panic date' [on the intention form] then we have to hand over to police at that stage," Mr Roberts said.
Sgt Grant said it was a seasonal problem tracking down trampers who had not alerted Doc they had successfully completed their intended tramp, especially when they had filled out intention forms in the first instance.
"It's not only foreigners, but locals too. We are spending a vast amount of time looking for these people," Sgt Grant said.
