THE WAIMATE WALLABIES

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28748, 20 November 1958, Page 13

THE WAIMATE WALLABIES

Unique Shooting

In Hills

Waimate offers one sport that cannot be found anywhere else in New Zealand—wallaby shooting.

The wallabies—really bush or scrub kangaroos, natives of Tasmania—were imported into New Zealand in 1870 and kept in the Botanic Gardens in Christchurch until they increased sufficiently in numbers for distribution.

Two does and a buck were liberated near Waimate in 1874.

Others released in other parts of the country did not survive, but. the wallabies certainly took to the Hunter Hills at the back of Waimate. The original animals were not sighted for the first two years, and then one was seen on the hills near the Waimate Gorge. Now they arc a post. A systematic campaign by cullers each season takes a toil of many hundreds of wallabies, which have become a worse pest than the rabbit in the hill country. They provide good sport, and the cullers also recommend their tails as being excellent for soup They have also given Waimate good publicity. As the town's centennial booklet proclaimed: "40.000 wallabies can't be wrong . . . they prefer Waimate.”