TWO FOOLS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 1, Issue 44, 2 August 1939, Page 5

TWO FOOLS

GULL SHOOTING AT THE HEADS danger to bystanders Stupidity and callous cruelty we- ; e mixed parts in the performance! of two young men who j*?contlv. amused themselves by shooting seagulls at The Heads, and in the process sprayed the landscape with bullets narrowly missing including a woman and her two children in th; bag. The woman was sitting on a log at the time and one bullet struck it. She approached the two young men to remonstrate with them, and they decamped as quickly as they could before she came up to them. The young men were wearing shorts and were using a .22 rifle. The sccne of their exploits was discovered to be littered with dead birds and several were flapping about with bad wounds. The ''sportsmen" had not sufficient deccncv to finish off their victims. The woman managed to retrieve -two of the birds and she took them to her home, thinking to cure them, but they died. One had a wing almost shot off and hangin.'* by the merest thread, and ihe other was shoe through the body. There is nothing that can be said ; n favour of the youths. They wert obviously the type of silly young idiot who tries to demonstrate its superiority 'by dealing out death to harmless creatures; they were brutal 'n their disregard of the bird's sufferings: they were wantonly careless : n that they might c\as'.ly have wcunded or .killed other human beings; and they were cowards nough to run from the scene when retribution was possible. Incidentally the .seagull is a promoted bird and a penalty attaches to their kill'ng.