Freeing More Pheasants “A Waste Of Time”

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30168, 27 June 1963, Page 8

Freeing More Pheasants “A Waste Of Time”

Pheasants were unlikely to become numerous in Canterbury. the research officer of the Wildlife Branch of the Department of Internal Affairs (Dr. K. Westerskov) said in Wellington recently. Pheasants seemed to have reached their optimum population size for existing conditions almost everywhere im New Zealand, and it was a silly waste of time liberating more anywhere, said Dr. Westerskov. This was indicated by an experiment around Whakatane, where the birds remained equally numerous in areas on both sides of the town even though large numbers had been liberated each year for 10 years in a district on one side and none at all on the other.

The birds needed more cover than was generally available in Canterbury, and it could also be that they did not find sufficient all-the-year-round food sources in this province, said Dr. Westerskov.

The only fairly large areas of scrub and other kinds of low cover widely available in Canterbury were in the riverbeds, where, in fact, most of the small pheasant population was to be found.

In Europe, the owners of estates fed their pheasants during difficult periods so that they would be available for private shooting later, but shooting regulations and conditions generally were different in New Zealand, and he could not see this happening in Canterbury, Dr. Westerskov said. Asked whether there was any point in continuing to protect pheasants when numbers were never likely to be high. Dr. Westerskov said this was a matter for local acclimatisation societies. Dr. Westerskov has just

completed a survey of the contents of the crops of about 900 pheasants shot in various parts of the country. Most of the pheasants in New Zealand were hybrids between the black-necked and ring-necked strains, although very many of them carried the white ring of the ring-necked variety, as this was genetically dominant. The black-necked pheasants, however, had been shown the better breed for New Zealand conditions, he said. A third variety, the Mongolian pheasant, had also been released in New Zealand but had almost died out.