POND SHOOTING

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume LX, Issue 23, 24 March 1939, Page 7

POND SHOOTING

ITS ABOLITION THREATENED

FEEDING OF DUCKS PROHIBITED

If a new provision in the game shooting regulations for the season opening on Saturday, May 6, is enforced it will practically mean the abolition of pond shooting, for ducks go to the ponds only to obtain feed placed there for them. The new clause in the regulations reads as follows: — "No person shall in any place during the period in that place of the open season, hereby declared, use for the taking or killing of imported and/or native game, any form of decoying game by the aid of corn, wheat, oats, barley, maize, or any other grain, or any products of grain or any other food placed by any person in or near the margin of any river, stream, lagoon, pond, swamp, estuary, or other water." ' While the prohibition of feeding applies also to the lake, the effect of its enforcement there will not be quite so serious from the shooter's point of view, as there are many natural feeding areas around the shores of the lake. A report presented to the council of the North Canterbury Acclimatisation Society on Wednesday evening stated that the intention of the Minister of Internal Affairs (the Hon. |W. E. Parry) in including the clause about feeding in the regulations was Ito assist the society in its endeavours to suppress the commercialisation of sport. The report added that it was the intention of the society to give the utmost publicity to the restriction, and to seek the co-operation of the landowner-sportsman in the proper observance of the regulation. The Minister has also adopted a recommendation that the season should open on the first Saturday in May instead of the first day of the month as in the past. This is obviously a concession to shooters in the city, most of whom would be able to get away for the first two days of the season, whereas their chances would not be so good in the middle of the week. The license fee has been increased from 10/- to £1 and the bag limits are as follows: (a) Ten head of Californian quail; (b) five head of paradise duck; (c) 10 head in all of grey duck, paradise duck, spoonbill duck, and mallard duck; (d) 15 head of black swan; (c) three head of cock pheasants; (f) 20 head of godwit. The license for shooting godwit is only 10/-.

A Blue Book issued by the Ministry of Health, England; shows that of 151,370 articles examined during 1937 under the Food and Drugs (Adulteration) Act, 8401 were found to be adulterated or not up to standard.

A stone has been placed in the pavement in Silver Street, Bedford, with the inscription: "On this site stood the Bedford County Gaol in which John Bunyan was imprisoned for 12 years, 1660-1672."

Auctions at which cripples are sold to be exploited as beggars—the most wretched-looking fetching the highest prices—are said to be held in the heart of Colombo's beggarland in Ceylon.