Mr Taiboys Attacks Deer-Culling Policy

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28950, 18 July 1959, Page 14

Mr Taiboys Attacks Deer-Culling Policy

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, July IL There had been “ alarmingly little" scientific wertt done on the deer menace in New Zealand, and “pitifully little" work done to discover the effect of culling on the deer herds, Mr B. K. Talboys I Opposition, Wallace) said during the Budget debate in the House of Representatives last night. "There is a disturbing amount of criticism of the present policy —not only from the deerstalkers, but also from scientists," he said Two "red herrings" had been raised at the conference on noxious animals called by the Minister of forests (Mr Tirikatene) last year These were the question of deer damage to forests, and the use of 1080 poison. "Before anything else is dope in the campaign against noxious animals we are entitled to know how effective the present culling policy is. "And we are entitled to demand that the Minister tell the House whether culling has reduced the Incidence of damage "We are entitled to ask for an assurance that the culling that has been going on for the last 30 years is reducing the size of deer herds in the country “I doubt if the Minister can give that assurance.” Mr Talboys said. Mr Talboys said New Zealand’s universities had not been particularly interested in the problem of noxious animals. The only intensive work on deer in the last eight years had been by an American, Mr Thane Riney, who worked with the Wildlife Division of the Department of Internal Affairs for about six years Mr Talboys said Mr Riney had made the only concentrated study on deer in New Zealand, yet the Government, by implication, had said, that he had little to tell New Zealand. Mr Talboys said an increasing number of people were wondering if Mr Riney had been written off because the evidence he produced did not support estab-

lished policy. Mr Riney produced a case to show that where the size of the deer herd was cut back the remaining hinds produced a higher percentage of fawns. Nature's Joke For more than 30 years the department had been sending teams of professional cullers into the' forest areas to kill as many deer as they could For 30 years, practically no research work had been done to discover what forces started to work in the remainder of the herds. According to Mr Riney, there followed what was virtually a population explosion, and a decimated herd multiplied at a tremendous rate. In a few years that herd reached a number greater than the original, and if that was the case, “na’ure must have been enjoying a joke at out expense for 30 years.” Mr Taiboys said the department’s culling policy was based on the belief that the only protection from noxious animals was to destroy them, even if efforts to do so were unsuccessful. About £120.000 was required last year for deer culling, and the bill must now be almost £1,750,000 for the 780.000 deer killed. “I don’t know if Thane Riney is right, but the Department of Forestry is wrong in not finding out if he is right.” said Mr Talboys. “We cannot go on fooling ourselves year after year that we are culling deer successfully.”