Shooting List

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31981, 7 May 1969, Page 16

Shooting List

Sir; —Will an authority give reasons for the inclusion of the pukeko in the shooting list? These beautiful birds are; much less common ' the district with which I am familiar than’ they were 30 years ago. At the present rate of destruction and recession of their feeding places we will probably be trying to regenerate them under controlled conditions in. another 100 years.—Yours, etc., PHYLLIS NEWELL. May 1, 1969.

Sir,—As a shooter, I believe that there is about as much sport in shooting a pukeko as in going into the backyard and shooting the hens, and I imagine that some of our Acclimatisation Society supporters would do

just that. It is ironical that | 1 these societies should derive ' a major part of their revenue i from native game birds, when it is largely due to. their misguided and short-sighted ac- i tivities that many native birds have been so sadly re- i duced in numbers—some to > the point of extinction. It is 1 high time that the societies had their authority transferred to an organisation guided by public interest and not that of a selfish minority. —Yours, etc., COLONIAL. , May 6, 1969. , ' i Sir,—l was shocked to read i that there is an open season i for pukeko. To think that I these beautiful birds are I almost extinct, and to leave 1 them to the mercy of ruthless i gun men! No sportsman ; would raise a gun to-them: it | would be like shooting fowls, i Are there no humane mem-1 bers of the acclimatisation ; society? Surely there will be ’ no more slaughter of swans ; again? There is no excuse for , allowing swans to multiply. ; It is a waste of good food not; to collect the eggs that • hungry people would be glad < of.—Yours, etc., , HAVE A HEART. May 5, 1969.