HABITS OF KEAS

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 150, 29 June 1929, Page 7

HABITS OF KEAS

A MERRY HIGHWAYMAN

TASTE FOR VENISON, TOO

Some interesting correspondence has appeared in the "Otago Daily Times" recently with reference to the agitation that the Government should discontinue the payment of 5s per head for the killing of keas on the ground that only a very small percentage of keas are sheep.killers ana that, in any case, the payment of such subsidy cannot be justified for keas killed in the extensive areas where there are no sheep within many miles of them and are never likely _to be. The subject has aroused an animated discussion in the Press of the four leading centres of the Dominion, and in the "Otago Daily Times" is now proceeding on the basis of the representations made by the deputation from the Now Zealand Alpine Club and the New Zealand Native Bird Protection Society to the Minister of Argiculture some weeks ago. The' deputation, while it did not seek protection of the bird, urged that the subsidy paid was not a fair charge on the general taxpayer, that as only certain districts were affected and the kea is not a ranger" the subsidy should be discontinued, that complaining sheepfarmers should be allowed to kill keas on their own properties and pay the cost themselves, and that if any • subsidy is continued to be paid it should not be paid in respect of keas killed in non-sheep country. PLAYING- "FOLLOW MY LEADER!" Oho correspondent, signing himself To Puhi," is a shepherd with 22 years' experience in the high country in the Lakes region of Otago. Dealing with bhe^habits of keas, he says: "When keas decide to eat flesh they do not stop at fresh mutton. Late one afternoon I shot a deer. It was beyond sheep coun-" try, and I took a strip of flesh from the backbone and a good hunk of undercut. About mid-afternoon«of next day, barely -4 hours later, I dropped down to that deer, sat down beside it, and this is what I saw: The deer was completely gutted, the topmost hind leg was completely stripped of flesh from hock to quarter—it was the white gleam of this that had first attracted my attention a small portion of the ribs was exposed and chewed, there was a run-way hole through the body coming out at the neck and the keas were playing 'follow my leader' through it. There were nine of them. I stayed there a full halfhour and teased the keas with my hill stick until I had them sitting as a little mob on the rocks abusing me and swearing at me soundly as only keas so laughably can do. 1 left them at the deer, consoling myself with the thought that they were only worth Is a head even if my eye and stick had been fast enough. The owner of the run to which I was then attached paid only a shilling a beak, because he considered that sufficient, and he was a successful high country flockmaster in every sense of the word in kea-infested country." A MUCH MALIGNED BIRD, "The kea is a maligned bird, and is being unwarrantably wiped out. It eats fresh mutton gluttonously when in the mood. Comparatively speaking it is rarely in the mood. I have never met a hill man who has convinced me that lie saw a kea kill a sheep on a fair "go." A kea can and does kill a snowyarded sheep. It does not -do it often, neither does it wantonly kill snow-yard-ed sheep for a fatty, tit-bit. It eats the sheep up, and there is a limit to a kea's appetite and mutton palate. Snow-yarded sheep in high country stations have been missed in the fall muster, or have been left out too late in the season to be mustered. Ninety per cent, of such sheep never come in at shearing; they die frozen stiff. If it is a so-called kea-killing winter, some are killed by keas before they die. After the first winter fall of snow the wethers, and in most eases all sheep other than breeding ewes, are hunted up the hill to the snow-line for the winter. In a so-called kea-killing winter some of these sheep are eaten by keas if they get 'down.' A number are killed over bluffs through being frightened by keas, and the keas eat them, but this does not happen every winter. "I have several times seen keas frighten a small lot of feeding sheep and scatter them, but I have never seen them 'bluff' one. I consider keas do 'bluff' sheep both in the day time and at night, but not often. I know exactly how keas frighten Bheep. They have tried one method- on me, and I have been momentarily frightened. I do not believe a kea gets on a sheep's back and rides him.to his death. A SUGGESTED REMEDY. "My remedy is that the Government subsidy should be immediately taken off the kea. .If runholders consider that keas are reducing their flocks, let them make application to the Land Board for a rental reduction on that score. The Land Board could then ask for the station stock figures, shearing and marketing tallies, autumn mustering tallies, and 'boughts' and 'solds.' The past five years have been such normal ones onhigh country stations that the normal death rate —a varying one in different districts—could be readily arrived at. Seven per cent, is a normal high country death rate, but, as I say, each individual station has its own normal death percentage. When the Land Board is satisfied that theoretically there is too great a death rate, it could send out a representative to report on the keas of that station or district. With the stationholder's report, its own theoretical report; and its representative's report, the Land Board could then recommend that a subsidy be placed on the kea or not in the infested area. My remedy may not be quite as easy as it reads, but it is feasible, and it would not cost £1800 of the taxpayer's money each year for the wanton destruction of one of our most interesting native birds." HOW KEAS ACQUIRED THE ART. "8.P." another correspondent, writing on the same subject, says:— "Now, we often came across the idea that the kea made the discovery that the sheep was worth attacking from its resemblance, when lying asleep, to certain clumps of moss-covered peat, which, being grub-infested, is the bird's natural questing place for food. In theory that is quite possible, but to the practical man it is not compatible with the fact that the kea is a most inquisitive customer, and that there is little he fails to investigate with his beak. In the early days, especially when sheep were newly shorn, the pelt was not worth keeping, and it is likely enough that it was just thrown away. The fat was generally saved by being hung on a peg driven into a gallows' post—or on top of a sheep yard post. The killing gallowß were nearly always an adjunct to the sheep yards. Well, the kea found something chic in this trap of fat, and of course the good news aoqn spread—at the cost of the fat—so much needed for the tallow candles ■or slush light that was so generally in vogue. In our simplicity we thought to thwart the kea by covering the tat with the pelt. But this was just into the kea's hand—such a prize to exercise the destructive propensities of his penetrating beak. The next act was to turn the akin wool side up in the hope that this would beat the bird. 'Never in your life'—demonstratically asserted the kea, and from the inanimate fat-covered woolly skin to the skin of the sheep. What more simple transition?" REPORTS EXAGGERATED Dealing with the question of keaa attacking hermit sheep, Mr. Richard Norman, another correspondent, says: "Hermit sheep are common in some places. A cunning old ewe with a lamb does not want to ondure any more tho

trials of being driven to the home Station, and therefore goes away in scrub or rocks to hide as soon as she hears the dogs barking in the distance. In the late 'seventies, Mr. A. C. Thomson, from Wakatipu, acquired the Minaret farm, west of Lake Wanaka, and stocked it with 18,000 sheep, and at shearing time, several months afterwards, ' only 14,000 sheep came in, and the number was less and less every succeeding year. There was no word about the keas killing all these sheep. That would be too big a contract for them. The keas were never blamed for this and other losses of sheep. 'Te Puhi' has made it abundantly clear that the poor old kea has had far too many sins laid at his feet. Doubtless many kaka beaks have been 'rung in' among kea beaks. Perhaps no one knows the difference. The kea beak is much longer and has more hook, but then the kaka beak could pt3S as belonging to a voune kea." " &