GAME BIRD PRESERVATION

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 29, 3 August 1923, Page 11

GAME BIRD PRESERVATION

A sportsmun of many years' experience deploring, the^-inettectiia] and increase of game birds. The pheasant, lie states, .is still fairly plentiful north of Auckland, while the "Californian quail (the most sporting of our birds)" is still to be found in "some few districts; Tmt the story everywhere one goes, is how numerous our game birds used to be. The preservation of game stands solely on a sufficiency of food the year round and the destruction of enemies. No efforts, appear, to be made by acclimatisation societies to restrict the number of natural enemies, and very few, if any, are able to give proper attention against poaching. The cry invariably is weasels, and the chairman of one society, in making this excuse, gives it out that these little varmints are hard to trap, when the very opposite is the case. Any small dry drain or like cover, whether artijicial or otherwise, i 6 sure to bo visited by these vernin, which dearly like such cover—and a trap at either end will tet--nunate the visitor's career. The writer lias known as many as fifteen to be ao lulled in a few weeks. Probably, however after the poacher the wild cat is our airds'. worst enemy. Small bush and scrub contractors introduce the«» to I keep down rats, which the waste" food j attracts to the camp, and when the contract is completed pussy is left behind, generally to maintain herself. A cat requires one. .mall bird or chicken daily, and the toll soon mounts up In jome districts this wild cat matter has uecorae quite a menace to poultry