Changing times

Press, 13 May 1981, Page 21

Changing times

By

OLIVER RIDDELL

Duck shooters in New Zealand are getting a bad deal. They are paying large sums of money for which they are getting very little return; their season is based on 100-year-old notions about the needs of English gentlemen; they are being denied access to ducks when duck numbers are greatest; and they are being forced to shoot the ducks who would breed the game for the next season.

These are the opinions of one of the country’s top duck and game scientists,- Dr Murray Williams of the Wildlife Service.

He wants the shooting season changed, in the combined interests of duck shooters and biologists like himself responsible for overseeing the duck population. His ideas will almost certainly stir up controversy.

The South Island season this year is. generally, from April 11 until. June 28, but varies considerably from area to area. It used to run from the first week in May until Queen’s Birthday weekend. There has been pressure for years to extend it into July and closer to the start of the breeding season, while efforts to bring forward the

start have been resisted. Dr Williams wants to adopt a season similar to that of Australia, where the season embraces both summer and autumn in the southern states. Also, he wants a three-month season, running roughly from the beginning of February to the end of April. “By restricting duck shooting to the period late-April or early-May to late-June, the hunter is being denied the chance to hunt at a time of year when the birds are most numerous, most concentrated, and causing the most damage to crops,” he says.

By extending the season later and later into the winter, duck shooters are forced to shoot the birds which have been strong enough to survive the autumn and who would probably have survived to become breeders later in the year. A MayJune season drastically lowers the number of potential breeding birds. This in turn reduces the duck population.

The current timing of the

season is a hangover from last century, but the season here has now assumed the status of a tradition. It derives from the notion- that one hunts ducks in winter. That suits Britain because in winter duck numbers are raised there by migrant birds from the Continent. The New Zealand situation is very different. Dr Williams says. “We must think more in terms of hunting when sportsmen have the best chance of bagging ducks, and when young ducks will not be missed from the core breeding population.”

Dr Williams notes that shooters get no return on their money used to control farm damage by ducks and no return on money spent to build ponds on private land. “The argument that these ponds breed ducks for other people to shoot is true, but it is equally true that public waters breed ducks for the private landowner to shoot,” he says. “On balance, the private landowner gets a good deal at the expense of the hunter, and the hunter gets very little back.”