NATIVE BIRD PROTECTION

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LII, Issue 8476, 22 December 1923, Page 3

NATIVE BIRD PROTECTION

The New Zealand Native Bird Prelection Society calls attention to the necessity of move sanctuaries lor our native birds. There- are a number of islands round our coast, including Stewart Island, which are eminently suited for such a purpose. Sanctuaries shcnld be in charge of bird lovers, who- know How to destroy vermin, and who are least loyal enough to- be- able to- resist collectors’ bribes.- Sluch sanctuaries would be very valuable fer saving species, on which subject that noted ornithologist, Mr H. Guthrie-Fmith, write? as follows-: —

“So far the best that has been done towards the conservation of species is but negative. At the best man has but here and there been content not to destroy utterly. What i? required is: positive work - the elimination of vermin and paiasites, the study and augmentation of special supplies of food, the- careful reservation of nesting accommodation.” The writer advocates the permanent! reservation of the Westland Nationaln Park, Stewart Island and of the- Sub-autartic islands. Other potential sanctuaries exist in the ranges of the North Island, where extensive regions are quite unfitted for settlement, lo quote once more'and in conclusion, “It is on such natural sanctuaries as these that- I advocate the- efficient protection of our avifauna, and the enforcement of laws excellent in themselves hut- at the ‘tack o beyond not worth the paper cn which they arc printed. In its birds each generation has but a life- of interest; no more than sea or sky do- they belong to any period. They aie properly entailed and to be transmitted age to age are inviolate. Their annihilation is in every truth wrong done- not to- ourselves or in cur time alone. Civilisation .succeeds civilisation as do- the seasons of our mortal life'; cities are razed, and on their ruins others rise; knowledge destroyed can be- again attained; but the- extinction of species is an ever-, lasting blank—a loss- that time itself cannot repair.”