‘Wide support’ to save wapiti

Press, 23 April 1980, Page 2

‘Wide support’ to save wapiti

The New Zealand Deerstalkers’ Association says it has received wide and growing support for its campaign to save the last wapiti herd in the Southern Hemisphere. The association wants the Government to declare a special area for the wapiti in the Fiordland National Park. A petition to be presented to the Minister of Lands and Forests (Mr Young) now has ■more than 35,000 signatures, according to the president of the association (Mr Hong Tse). About 1000 of the signatures had been collected by overseas hunters and fishermen in Australia and Canada, said Mr Tse. The Fiordland National Park Board decided in 1974 that the wapiti would. have no special status in the park. “This means that the wapiti, which is the largest living deer in the world apart from the moose, is deemed a noxious animal within the ■ park and seemingly faces doom,” said Mr Tse. The Deerstalkers’ Association has proposed that the -Government set aside a triangular area with sides of about 55 kilometres within th? existing wapiti habitat.Commercial deer recovery operations round the. perimeter of the protected area would confine the wapiti herd and protect if from another danger — that of hybridisation with red deer, the association believes.

Strictly controlled hunting licences would be issued within the area to keep the herd in check while guaranteeing its future, said Mr Tse. ■■