PROTECTION OF NATIVE BIRDS

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 55, 13 September 1928, Page 16

PROTECTION OF NATIVE BIRDS

* (To the Editor.) Sir, —It is indeed refreshing to liavo the president of the- Wellington Acclimatisation Society express a desire to see our native birds protected, and may it be hoped that words will be followed by deeds, especially with reference- to the chocking of poaching now so very rife. This gentleman, when enumerating enemies of forest nativebirds, appears to liavo omitted the worst—deer and other animals which destroy and damage tho homes and food supplies, of forest birds. So far as the trapping of kiwis and other birds by opossum trappers is concerned, emphasis is laid on the fact that very few kiwi are- "caught in tho Wellington district, but surely it would have been fair, to say as-well that there are not many of this species-left in tho Wellington district to get trapped. On the West Coast, however; kiwis arc- trapped in numbers. The evidence as to this is incontrovertible, and the destruction by trapping alone, it is feared, must result in ■ extermination where ground traps are used. Almost any trapper can verify tho writer's statement that many birds, native- and otherwise, are caught in the Wellington district, and indeed it is surely only common-sense to expect they would be, as traps placed on tho ground must catch anything that steps on them, bo they birds or opossums. Let tho president try out impacted traps on..his fowls or cats, if ho has any. Even on Kapiti, where ground traps are not used, tho writer is informed that birds are aught in the opossum traps. It is now to be hoped that tho local Acclimatisation Society will endeavour to act up to its president's exhortation, and be prepared to givo preference to those birds which help to make Now Zealand our pride rather than sacrifice them for revenue from opossum royalty. —I am, etc. K. V. SANDERSON. Paekukarildj 10th September.