SPORT AND BIRDS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 117, 20 May 1933, Page 1 (Supplement)

SPORT AND BIRDS.

game of bush and water,

THE MAORI HUNTER,

(By J.C.)

Xo. T. The bang of a double-barrel gun and the sislit of a successful duck-shooting sportsman with his hag, prompt comparison with the gamc-liunting methods ■and takes of other days, when there \rcro fewer gunmen and a greater abundance of native bird life. While there jg more freedom for the rifleman whose 'quarry is the red deer, with tbe removal of restrictions on stalking the now too numerous herds, the shotgun sportsman finds life field becoming narrower every year. Native bird life is decreasing beforo the spread of settlement, introduced destructive pests and the drainin" of large swamps and lagoons and drying up of watercourses.

Sanctuaries for duck and teal and ®tlicr waterfowl are numerous and necessary, and most species of bush birds are now on the protected list. A generation a oo there was unlimited duck shooting, but year by year the native game diminishes in quantity. Pheasants, the principal imported game, are said to be on iho increase again, but tliey arc not nearly so plentiful as they were 40 or ■50 years ago, when they were a nuisance to farmers and when a gun was necessary to protect the growing crops. But now shooting is made so easy and poach:jDg is so much the practice, that it is yaiher a wonder any birds survive, whether native or introduced. One Kind of Sportsman.

•Lately, it fanner, wlio Is a shooting 4nan himself, told me of his experience ■with a specimen of the town sporting ■fraternity. This gunner came along in his car and obtained permission to ♦hoot over tlie farm. Then the dairy cows, tlie poultry, and the children liad to take cover. The double bangs were ceaseless. Even the farmer's wife had A narrow escape from a peppering of •«hot. All the feathered game about made for the next farm or swamp, where they were comparatively safe. The farmer met his town visitor a few days later and inquired the luck of his two days' shooting. The sport reported that he had fired two hundred shots and got three rabbits.

There are many of that kind of gunmisuser about, and also the kind that shoots from motor cars 011 the country roads. 0110 would like to impose 011 such people the conditions of an earlier ,*ra in the country. The gun with which tho present writer first learned to shoot was the good old reliable muzzle-loader. It was necessary to carry powder flask, shot-flask, a supply of percussion caps, ■and some paper for wadding, and even Tvith much practice loading was a slow operation. That old d.b.m.l. taught accuracy, as well as economy of ammunition. * One did not waste those shots. If all would-be oh 00 tints were compelled to begin with a muzzle-loader there would be far less noise, for one thing, and less danger to fellow sports and the travelling public, and to the ,«attlc on a thousand hills.

Maori Methods of Fowling. Contrast old-time Maori ways of taking birds in bush, swamp, river, and lake with the popular gunning pastime of to-day. The Maori killed wild fowl in great numbers, and yet there was no apparent diminution in their numbers. He observed close seasons, and when the bird-hunting time came the whole community took part in it. It was true sport, in the sense that the hunters enjoyed it greatly and yet did not needlessly kill birds or waste the game taken. The hunting was strictly for ithe pot, or rather the haangi or umu, "the earth oven. The Maori did not Icill birds for the mere sport of the thing, for tho sake of exhibiting his skill in slaughter. The pigeon, kaka, tui, and other bush birds which weie in vast numbers in the bush, and the grey duck (parera), formed a very large part of the native sources of food supply, and the process of capturing and preserving the birds of the forest and the swamps and waters was an important industry of the Maori life. Centuries of existence and food-quest in these islands had produced a vast store of bush lore and many ingenious methods of obtaining the feathered harvest of the forest. Tho principal means used before the pakeha shotgun ■was introduced were long spears and "various kinds of snares, and even into modern times these primitive and effective devices remained in use in some ilaori tribal districts, because not only were they cheaper than guns and ammunition but because they did not frighten away tho birds. The Maoris found that shooting had the effect in tho long run of driving the pigeon, kaka, tui, and duck to other districts, whereas spearing and snaring could be carried •on year after year without appreciably effecting the abundance of bush game. In some parts of the King Country chiefly, the Hurakia-Tuhua ranges, in "West Taupo, the Upper Wa.nganui, and South Ivawliia—and in the Urewera Country, the old foresters' ways persisted long after they had been abandoned elsewhere. When I was first in the Urewera Country, in 1808, the long, slender spears were still being used in the Kuatahuna and Maungapoliatu districts. These 25-foot and 30-foot spears were the product of long and patient industry, for they were cut out and gradually fined down from a tawa tree split up. A great many mutu kaka, the snaring apparatus with which the large bush parrot was caught, were also seen in tho villages: they were taken out and set in position, chiefly in flic tops of rata, trees, when the season for fowling came round, when the birds Were in best condition from feeding 011 tho forest fruits and the nectar of the fata.

The Kaka Snare. The mutu kaka was a. kind of perch cut from n, forked branch, and rigged frith a. running tackle and a noose contrivance which caught the kaka by the legs jiifit above the claws when it settled 011 the perch, which was made fast to the end of a pole and pushed up to tho top of the tree. The hunter, with the end of the long flax line in his hand, sat in the branches below, or sometimes on the ground, until a kaka fras caught by a quick twitch of the rope. Then lie belayed the tackle and climbed quickly, or drew down the pole to which the perch was fastened, and killed the bird by biting it at the back of the head. He placed the parrot in his game basket of flax and arranged ibis tackle for the next bird.