PROTECTED TERN KILLED

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27377, 16 June 1954, Page 9

PROTECTED TERN KILLED

TWO BROTHERS EACH FINED £25

MAGISTRATE IMPOSES MAXIMUM PENALTY

“The Press" Special Service AUCKLAND, June 15. Two'young men were each fined the maximum of £25 in the Magistrate’s Court at Helensville for killing Caspian and white-fronted tern, protected birds, which were nesting at Kaipara Heads. Mr H. Jenner Wily, S.M., described their action as “wanton, cruel and wilful destruction.”

The defendants were brothers, Lionel Theodore Pook and Cyril Edward Pook, fishermen on the Kaipara Harbour. The offence, to which they pleaded guilty, occurred at South Head on December 13, 1953.

The men were charged with taking or killing absolutely protected animals contrary to the provisions of the Animals Protection and Game Act. The Department of Internal Affairs brought the prosecution after the Wild Life division had investigated the case. Photographs of the dead birds were produced in Court. Malcolm Waller, a farmer, of South Head, said that he and Mr J. B. Herman, of Auckland, heard shooting and saw the two men through fieldglasses. The defendants were shooting the tern in the birds’ nesting area near the beach. A launch was tied up in the Vicinity. The witness and his companion Investigated and found that some of the birds had been shot on the nest and others in the air. There were also a lot of chickens about. The defendants had left by this time and the witness had to kill some of the wounded birds. The Magistrate said it was the most wanton,* cruel and wilful destruction he had heard of. The offenders not only destroyed the parent birds, but the injured ones and the chickens were left to die. The case clearly called for the maximum penalty under the act. The act was there to protect native birds, and it was important that it should be observed