Lake Ellesmere Reclamation Scheme Concerns Sportsmen

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28250, 11 April 1957, Page 14

Lake Ellesmere Reclamation Scheme Concerns Sportsmen

The North Canterbury Acclimatisation Society will inform the Internal Affairs Department of its concern at proposals to reclaim some miles of the Lake Ellesmere foreshore and some 6000 acres where wild duck breed and live. This area, says the society, provides good shooting for many sportsmen.

The council of the society last evening agreed to take this action on the recommendation of its game committee which reported on Town and Country Planning Act matters.

The report said that recently the department advised that a proposal had been made to it, that Lake Grassmere, with a strip of land five chains wide around the margin, be declared a wildlife refuge. “It is understood the lake is in the process of being transferred to the Lands Department and that the Director-General of Lands is in agreement with the proposals,” said the report. The committee recommended that Lake Grassmere as a wild-

life refuge be approved provided it had a strip of land 10 chains wide around the shore and that only rowing boats be allowed on the lake.

The council also agreed to the recommendation of the committee that an effort be made to rear quail at Greenpark and that the hatching of pheasants be continued .there in a small way. Mr J. P. Glasson said the committee realised that there was no indication to the council of the costs involved, staff to carry out the work, or the number of birds to be purchased, but it wished to secure approval in principle from the council.