GAME SHOOTING HOURS

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25364, 11 December 1947, Page 3

GAME SHOOTING HOURS

RESTRICTION URGED SOCIETY’S REPLY TO MINISTER A further request to the Minister of Internal Affairs ‘Mr W. E. Parry) to restrict the hours, of shooting in the North Canterbury Acclimatisation Society’s district \yill be made by the society. This was decided at a meeting of the council last evening, on the recommendation of the council’s game committee. In his report to the council the chairman of the game committee, Mr T. E. Fisher, said that a reply to the society’s letter proposing restricted hours had been received from the Minister. The Minister was of the opinion that “a specific time should be determined and acted upon.” This condition. said the Minister should apply to the Dominion as a whole, and hence the subject was one for consideration by the Northland South Island councils. The committee disagreed with the Minister’s views, said Mr Fisher. It recommended that a reply to the Minister, incorporating the following points, he sent:

’ (1) The society’s district was probably unique in the number of its natural and artificial ponds. (2) Because of the practice of “feeding” these waters before the beginning of the shooting season, wild duck continued between sunset and darkness to decoy to these areas in search of food; this encouraged much of the after-hour shootin-;, which was largely responsible for the heavy toll taken.

(3) The South Island council would probably show only an apathetic interest in a parochial problem of this nature. In this proposed reply, said Mr Fisher, the Minister Would be requested to reconsider his directive that the question be considered from the national angle, and to authorise the prohibition of all shooting after sunset as a local regulation. If the Minister insisted that shooting should cease at a specific hour in lieu of sunset, the committee considered that the appointed time should be 5.30 p.m. The recommendation that snooting should cease at 5.3 Q p.m. was not fair on persons shooting swans at Lake Ellesmere, said a member.

The chairman, Mr J. McKenzie, said that the time had been suggested only because the Minister had asked for a Specific time. The council had previously recommended that shooting should cease at sunset. The present regulations forbade shooting more than an hour after sunset.

In reply to a question, Mr Fisher admitted that the committee’s recommendations were aimed at protecting birds on the ponds. The council approved the suggested reply framed by the committee.