IN HIGH COUNTRY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 72, 26 March 1931, Page 9

IN HIGH COUNTRY.

DIFFICULT DEER-SHOOTING.

GOVERNMENT PARTIES' WORK.

(By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Rcporter.'i WELLINGTON, this day. Government shooting parties working in very high country in the South Island, sometimes at the altitude of (iOOOft, are taking heavy toll of the deer. Mr. Yerex, who is in charge, has sent an interesting report to the Minister of Internal Affairs. One party, operating from a base near the head of the Hunter Valley, with an average working strength of five men, killed 447 deer. Another, with a working strength on the average of three and a half, killed 331 deer in three weeks and a half.

The deer are now occupying the highest levels near the glaciers and snowfields. On one occasion deer were shot immediately below the crumbling face of a glacier, and on the men realising the danger of their position, because of loud cracks caused by the breaking of ice and the constant falling of huge blocks of ice, they abandoned the skinning of the carcases.

"It is quite impossible," says Mr. Yerex, "for anyone who is not familiar with the high mountainous country over which the operations are being carried out to have any conception of the nature of the men's achievements, which can only be describe*! as wonderful."

Deer-shooting operations have been continued also on Stewart Island, but detailed results. are not available, as the men have been completely cut off from all communication.