AN HISTORIC HERD

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 112, 5 February 1926, Page 8

AN HISTORIC HERD

PARAPARAUMU DEER TO GO “ANIMALS’ MISDEEDS EXAGGERATED” A saddening decision had to be made at Wednesday’s meeting of the Wellington Acclimatisation Society, when the matter of the deer park at Paraparaumu came up for discussion. This was the decision practically to do away with the existing herd in the park owing to the impossibility of importing new blood from the Old Country, whence on account of the prevalence of foot and mouth disease, the society had not been able to obtain animals with the necessary clean bill of health. This means that the existing herd, with the exception of one stag and a .couple of hinds, will be destroyed next month. The end of this herd will be an event in the acclimatisation world, for it was from animals bred at the park that the whole of the North Island has been stocked. The original stock came from Warnhani Court, in England, some 25 years ago, and everv now and then the blood has been freshened up with stags and hinds from the same famous herd, but of recent years that practice has not. been pursued, and now it is an impossibility for the reason stated; in any case there is no encouragement to do so. as it is considered by the society that in some circles deer are regarded as vermin.

Mr. C. D. Daseht, secretary of the society, informed a “Dominion” reporter that a lop-sided view existed in official quarters about what was termed “the deer menace.” Deer never became a nuisance or an agent of destruction in districts where the herds were looked after, and carefully culled each year. For the last three years 3000 head per annum had been shot in the Wellington district, apart from those taken by stalkers and those that died, and as the result there was no complaint in the district about the depredations of deer. Some complaint had been made about them in the Waikaremoana and Rotorua districts (which were under direct Government control), but even fn such cases he considered the tales of their numbers and wrong-doing were grossly exaggerated, his opinion being based on the reports of stalkers in those districts. The Government was' on sound ground in the case of such districts, where the deer were out of hand, but what applied there where the herds had detetriorated through long and persistent neglect, did not appl}’ to the North Island. Mr. Dasent said that the deer were being held responsible for all damage now done to the forests—bv Maori horses in the plantations of Rotorua, by wild cattle in the ranges, and even by the forces of nature. Thev were not being given a fair spin at all. What he objected to was the lop-sided view taken in saddling the North Island with conditions which existed solely in certain parts of the South Island—due to neglect.