CHAMOIS IN LEWIS PASS

Press, Volume LXXX, Issue 24150, 8 January 1944, Page 6

CHAMOIS IN LEWIS PASS

MIGRATION FROM MOUNT COOK

This week a Christchurch sportsman brought home for mounting the head of a chamois shot in the Lewis Pass. In a direct line, this is about 110 miles from the Mount Cook region, where chamois were liberated first in 1907. It is the furthest north that the chamois has been reported in New Zealand.

The original five chamois and seven bucks were liberated in the Hermitage area in 1907 when they were received from Emperor Franz Josef of Austria in appreciation of a collection of New Zealand kakas, keas, kiwis, katipos, and moa bones assembled by Admiral von Rutter during a visit in 1904. The presentation was made to the Government, which then controlled the Hermitage at Mount Cook. The thar were freed two years later. , Chamois spread rapidly in the Sealey, Moorhouse, and Wakefield ranges, and as high as the leading spur of Mount Cook. Through passes and over High mountains they passed to the West Coast. They have been seen in the South Island (the only place where they had acclimatised outside their natural habitat in wie Austrian Alps) to move in herds of up to 100 at an altitude of 4000 feet. Government cullers in 1937 and 1938 shot 5000 chamois and thar within a 10-mile radius of the Hermitage. This campaign followed a period when the animals almost totally destroyed native mountain plants in the area. The growth has now recovered.