Shooting List

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31982, 8 May 1969, Page 14

Shooting List

Sir, —“Penguin’s’’ letter reminds one of the French jibe against the English: “It’s a fine day, let us go out and kill something.” “Penguin’s” stricture has the merit of basic ethics and morality, though it may be considered by some “sports” as vitriolic invective. In time mankind will be civilised enough to realise that to kill just for sport is a sin.—Yours, etc., SETH NEWELL. May 6, 1969,

Sir, —I wish to take up the theme of “Silent Swamp” and ask the same question

through your column. Is the North Canterbury Acclimatisation Society ashamed that pukeko are on the list for this shooting season? Is the society aware of the growing public concern and interest in this native bird? I challenge the society at even this late date to remove nonsporting targets from the bag lest we have only a silent swamp as our heritage.— Yours, etc., M. C. CULLEN. May 1, 1969. [Mr H. B. Barker, secretary of the North Canterbury Acclimatisation Society, replies: “The North Canterbury Acclimatisation Society assures your correspondents that it will not allow the pukeko to become extinct as a result of shooting pressure. Recognition must be made however, of the need to manage the specie, which if placed on the fully protected list would soon assume pest proportions in the areas, in which suitable habitat still remains. The light shooting to which these birds are exposed during the one month of the year meets with this need, and though the Society deplores the loss of wet-lands in its district, 18 areas in which all shooting is prohibited have now been established.”]