European settlers imported red deer for sport into New Zealand and released them into the forests starting in 1851, along with many other introduced animals. The environment proved perfect for a population explosion, the result being widespread damage both to vegetation and to farmers' grazing. The New Zealand government, in order to solve the problem, paid deer cullers a bounty per deer-tail in an attempt to control deer numbers, starting in the 1930s. Until the early 1950s, the sale of deer hides recovered by the government hunters supposedly financed the wildlife culling operations. This ceased when the market collapsed. Then Germany began to purchase exported New Zealand venison, and the deer market hunting industry commenced.