Reserve for feral sheep

Press, 31 December 1980, Page 13

Reserve for feral sheep

Work will begin early next month to set up a reserve for the century-old flock of feral Merino sheep on Pitt Island, oft the main Chatham Island. The reserve is to protect the sheep and also to protect other fauna and flora reserves into which tlje sheep have been breaking. The sheep were originally a present from Governor George Grey to the first owner of Pitt Island, Mr Frederick Hunt, in 1850. They are a Spanish Merino type and have been wild oh the island since the last century. There are thought to be slightly more than 1000 .of them. Although the sheep have since bred with other breeds, notably Lincoln and Romney, they are still clearly a Merino-type. More than 95 per cent of them have a dark pigmentation in the wool, and 98 per cent of the rains have

spectacular curving horns. However, the . feral sheep are also a nuisance to the local farmers, who run drives to shoot them, and to the Wildlife Service, which finds its fauna and flora reserves are knocked about by the sheep crashing down reserve fences. The solution has been to set the feral sheep up in their own spe-cially-fenced reserve on another part of Pitt Island. About 200 to 300 sheep will be kept in the reserve; the rest will b® ®** terminated. ' . Catching the sheep will not be easy. They are clever and skittish animals, programmed after years of hunting to bolt at the slightest suggestion of human presence. Their home territory is a wild, bleak, cold,' windswept, rain-lashed, and remote Ert of a very remote isid. It is also covered in dense send

The ghost of the Government’s Information Department scandal which brought down the former State President — and Prune Minister —- John Vorster, is again haunting the corridors of power in South Africa. This time Prime Minister Pieter Botha, who succeeded Mr Vorster just over two years ago, sees himself as the victim of what he calls “malicious innuendo.” He has spoken emotionally of a mysterious man “stalking the country with a dagger in his hand to stab the Prime Minister of South Africa in the back.” The fresh allegations over a scandal which rocked . -South Africa — and brought a change of leadership and direction in

By'

OLIVER RIDDELL