ACCLIMATISATION CONTROL

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23043, 11 June 1940, Page 6

ACCLIMATISATION CONTROL

SOCIETIES CONFER AT TEMUKA [From Our Own Reporter.] TEMUKA, June 10. A resolution asking the Minister for Internal Affairs (the Hon. W. E- Parry) to defer any steps to alter the present form of wild life control until after the war, was carried unanimously at a conference which members of the South Canterbury, Waimate, and Ashburton Acclimatisation societies attended. “J believe that any proposals of the Government for amalgamating acclimatisation societies or taking over control should be dropped altogether for the present,” said Mr G. Kelly (Ashburton), who moved the resolution. The chairman (Mr J. McDonald) said he believed that Mr Parry had practically decided to take control out of the hands of acclimatisation societies with a view to placing wild life control under a State department. He thought that it would be a retrograde step if the Government took over. Members criticised the group representation on the South Island council, saying that each acclimatisation society should be represented to keep it fully in touch with affairs. They praised the work of Mr McDonald, as their representative, however, and reappointed him as representative for Waimate, South Canterbury, and Ashburton. Conditions in the North and South Islands were entirely different, said Mr McDonald, and the replacement of the old Dominion conference with separate island councils had been a big improvement. A petition opposing drastic changes in acclimatisation control, forwarded to the Minister by the Ashburton society, was supported.