If you find it, keep it

Tens of thousands of hunters are scouring the countryside today as what’s thought to be New Zealand’s largest ever hunt officially gets under way.

Traditional targets such as pigs, deer and possums are all safe though as the quarry is instead two brand new D-MAX utes from Isuzu.

“It’s a pretty simple premise. If you find them, you can keep them,” says Isuzu General Manager Greg MacDonald.

MacDonald said there was one ute hidden in each island.

The hunt comes after a four week online campaign where clues were released in a series of videos fronted by Swazi’s Davey Hughes.

25,000 people had registered to take part in the hunt.

The final clue was released over the weekend and MacDonald said only then would hunters have all the information needed to find the vehicles.

MacDonald said the landowners at the two locations where the utes had been hidden had been briefed about how to deal with potentially large numbers of people wishing to search their property.

He urged all hunters taking part to take extra care and ask landowners before searching private property.

“The D-Max is valued at $55,000 and we could quite literally have thousands of people turning up at these locations today looking for them”, MacDonald said.

“The whole hunt process has really taken on a life of its own over the last month and two lucky people are going home a lot happier later on today with a brand new ute.”