10-year loss to keas

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32494, 2 January 1971, Page 16

10-year loss to keas

High-country farmers would be glad to see the last of the native kea. Mr W. Gray, manager of Glynn Wye station, in the Lewis Pass, has complained that during the last 10 years keas have destroyed sheep worth $40,000. He said the

; birds had killed at least 5000 , sheep on the station either by tearing out their kidneys or leaving the sheep infected . so badly that they died of ’ blood poisoning. j Mr Gray said he was will- ! ing to bet one year’s wages ’ in support of his claim that ’ keas were the most destruc- : tive element on high-country stations. Other station owners and managers have backed up Mr Gray’s claim. They dismiss as nonsense the claims of some “armchair conservationists who never move outside a city” that keas are quite playful but harmless. Mr Gray believes that 95 per cent of the sheep that i keas attack die of blood poisoning. The filth on their beaks gets into the blood stream from the slightest ! scratch arid means almost 1 certain death. Mr Gray considers that the kea should not be a pro- ■ tected bird. “There are people who say

they do not do any damage,” he said. “We have invited them here to have a look for themselves, but they won’t come. I have photographs of the keas at work on the sheeps’ backs.” Another high - country farmer said he knew the keas were a great nuisance in the Mackenzie Country, where station owners would pay a bounty for their beaks. One station owner, he said, had paid $4O to a musterer for shooting one kea which had a notorious reputation as a sheep killer. Some musterers had earned almost as much killing keas in the offseason as they had during the mustering. On a few stations keas had been caught alive and taken out in cages to the sheep, where they would call other keas. This gave shepherds and musterers plenty of opportunity to destroy them. Other station owners had resorted to more direct methods of dealing with the enemy. Using helicopters, they baited the hills with sheep carcases amply spiced with strychnine. Some station owners contend that keas are not natural predators of sheep but become killers more by accident. Once they alight on the sheep’s back the animal starts running. The kea digs its beak in to hang on, opens a hole and gets a taste of the fat. This is the beginning of the kea’s life of crime.