WILD SHOOTING AT WILD DUCK.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 10060, 11 June 1898, Page 6

WILD SHOOTING AT WILD DUCK.

Thebe have always been oroakers who declare that "sport is going to the dogs," and the testimony of the oldest inhabitant is frequently invoked to prove that things are not what they were when he was a boy. But while making full allowance for the tendency of sportsmen like other men to cry up the past and ory down the present there is, unfortunately, abundanf evidence of an authentic character to show that our *game is in process of extermination. The duck shooting on Lake Elleamere in particular grows poorer and poorer every year. The

1 plan of reserving 600 acres as a sanctuary for the birds is a step in the right direction but it is doubtful whether, in itself, it will be sufficient to stop the falling off. It is not exaggeration to say that wholesale and wanton destruction of ducks is going on at the lake, and it is becoming ; urgently necessary that means should be taken to check the evil. Sportsmen put the blame largely on. the class of I "professionals," who of late years have become so active on the lake. These people shoot ducks not for sport but for ! being, we understand, the ruling price at which most of the I ducks are sold. There are at least a dozen men who this season are malting a livelihood by this professional shooting. Curiously enough, though the Acclimatisation Society is empowered to require them to take out £5 selling licenses, the great majority of them are unlicensed. The objeotion urged is, of course, not that these men sell their duoks instead of giving them away; provided they take out licenses they have a right to please themselves. But it is urged, not without justice, that the object ' with which they shoot;—profit. not sport—leads them to employ methods that are particularly destructive. It is not sport that is their object; it is the question of a shilling per bird. And, as the cartridge costs but a penny, they are willing to take a'twelve to one chance of a hit. The result ia that many of these men maim more birds than they get. We are assured that on the second and third days after the opening of the present season hundreds of maimed birds ; were picked up on the shores of the lake, where they had floated in. It is quite evident that unless some stepe are taken to check this wholesale slaughter it will soon be impossible to get a bird on the lakft Every year fewer and fewer birds come in, and those that do come in are as well educated as Mabk Twain's frog. The oft-repeated proposal for a gun license would no doubt do some- , thing, but thsre is tke objection to it that it is practically a poll tax, and would fall as heavily on the small man who can only afford two or three days on the lake during a whole season as on the well-to;do sportsman. A cartridge tax, of which the proceeds were devoted to stocking the colony with game, is a measure advocated by some. It would be fair in its incidence, as the man who shot off 1000 cartridges in a season would contribute ten times as much as his neighbour who could, only afford to expend 100. And if the revenue so raised were distributed among the acclimatisation societies to be applied in stocking the country with game, New Zealand might, in the course of time, become as attractive for its shooting as it already is for its fishing, and the colony would thus receive a valuable advertisement. In the meantime measures less far-reach-ing in their scope might be taken, which would have the effect of checking at least, even if it did not stop, the diminution in game. The cylinder regulation, limiting the cylinders to 2ft 6in, has been found difficult to enforce, and we are afraid, in spite of an

occasional prosecution, that it is little better than a dead letter. The lake is lower and lower every year, and the shooters aro creeping further and further out into the bayg; very soon even the centre of the lake will cease to ho .«afo for the birds. Ifc might be worth while to consider ■whether cylinder shooting should not be prohibited altogether. The objection that all the shore lands might be taken up in private leases would be met by the Government setting aside a certain proportion of the shores as public shooting reserves, even as 600 acres have already been set aside as a sanctuary. The rights of that portion of the public who are unable to afford to join syndicates for leasing " shoots" would then be safeguarded. Such a step, we have no doubt, would act as a powerful check on the present destruction of the game; and unless some sach course is followed it will soon become necessary to resort to the precaution of two close seasons in succession, if the birds are to be saved from BomethiDg like extermination.