ACCLIMATISATION IN OTAGO.

Press, Volume LI, Issue 8729, 27 February 1894, Page 5

ACCLIMATISATION IN OTAGO.

At the monthly meeting of the Otago Acclamatisation Society Mr J. Roberts moved :—"Thab the question of considering the advisability of making the present a close season for native and imported game be deferred for a week." He thought that a close season would be a good thing, owing to the destruction of game that was going on in some places. He was of opinion that a large section of the counbry people would be in favour of a close season. If there were many more seasons like the past one he .Icnew that ducks would soon become extinct. , The motion was unanimously carried. Mr G. Clifford stated thab he had received a further shipment of prawns from Sydney, and had liberated them in the bay. ■Mr R. Maclean; of Hawea Lake station, wrote thab stags were plenbiful in his district. They had wintered remarkably well, owing to the splendid weather. Young stags cast their horns and antlers from the 15th October, and old stags three weeks later, or about the 7th November. Hinds were more numerous than ever, and were picking up fast after the calving, which was the best he had ever seen there, _s there was hardly a hind without a calf at foot. .On the Timaru river sides there were 100 - calves alive. He hoped the Society would not open the season earlier than April Ist, as then no one would 'be disappointed. It the herd got the same attention during the next three years that they had got in the past the Society would have bhe finesb hinds of any place in the Pacific. It was resolved that no deer bo shot by any other means than by ball cartridge, it having been stated that the animals were shot with slug cartridges, which resulted in simply wounding inacv of them.