PROTECTED BIRDS SHOT BY NEW AUSTRALIANS

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27637, 19 April 1955, Page 16

PROTECTED BIRDS SHOT BY NEW AUSTRALIANS

[From A. P. McVEIGHI MELBOURNE, April 12. A new dish is featuring on menus in some Australian homes—“ Baked Ha Ha Pigeon”—and it promises to equal in popularity the other queer things gourmets find delightfuL This situation, however, has not pleased many people, for the meat is none other than the native and protected Kookaburra.

New Australians, principally Italians, are held responsible for this breach of the game and bird protection laws, the accepted reason being that there are no sacred birds in their former homeland and they are not yet familiar with restrictions in the Commonwealth.

Other birds, suffering the iate ot the hunter’s pot are magpies, stilts (small grey birds resembling snipes), thrushes, blue wrens and tomtits. The penalty for being caught with such a bag is anything between £5 and £5O, and a conviction automatically means the confiscation of the offender’s gun. Mr W. A. Quinn, of the Victorian Fisheries and Game Department, said recently: "We are trying our utmost to stamp out the practice but so far we haven't been very successful.” Lists of protected birds have been published in migrant newspapers and convictions against offenders have been obtained but there are always more migrants arriving to break the laws.