Duck menu cost $80

Press, 19 February 1983, Page 4

Duck menu cost $80

Two out-of-work men whose food had run out. and who caught two ducks while hitching to the Nelson area for work, made the wrong decision when they called at a house for the loan of a billy in which to cook the ducks,

The District Court heard yesterday that the resident they called on for the billy, at Sportswood in North Canterbury, was a North Canterbury Acclimatisation Society ranger.

The society yesterday prosecuted one of the men, Lewis Reginald Stanton, unemployed, on a charge of possessing two paradise ducks, without Hawful authority, ' at Spotswood on November 20 last year.

He pleaded guilty and was convicted and fined $3O, with

costs totalling $5O. Mr J. J. Brandts-Giesen, who appeared for the society, said the defendant and his companion called at a farmhouse seeking a billy to fry two ducks. The person they called on was an acclimatisation society ranger and he found that the defendant had two young paradise ducks. One duck was still alive, but had to be destroyed. The defendant said he and his friend were making their way to Motueka "to do a bit of job-hunting.” They had been on the road a couple of days and their food had run out. They saw the two ducks on a pond as they were hitching along and they thought they would grab them for something to eat. They had

carried them for about a mile and were intending to go to a riverbed to cook them. Mr Brandts-Giesen said that the ducks had not been shot; neither man had a firearm. The defendant said he had been unemployed since July and his prospects for employment were not too good. Mr Brandts-Giesen said that the defendant was the only person charged as the ducks had been in his possession. Judge Fogarty said that the offence was regarded seriously, and there was provision for a maximum fine of $5OO and $2O for each bird. He said that the defendant was making an effort to find a job at the time. He would impose a very small fine solely because of the defendant's financial position.