WILD LIFE CONTROL

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 85, 11 April 1933, Page 8

WILD LIFE CONTROL

(To. the Editor.) Sir—The remarks of. the chairman of the : Wellington .Acclimatisation Society, when replying in your: issue or the 7th instant to Mr. G.B. Wilson,, do not appear to be convincing.:. Emphasis, for instance,'is placed, on- the advisability of entrusting the killing^of: deer to stalkers alone. By which he presumably means to those who pay a licence fee to the_society. Now such a sportsman is out aftei a big head as a trophy^ and if he comes across fifty deer'within fifty yards he is not going to shoot, unless there is a decem head in the herd, because ho would frighten away any good head lurking unseen in the vicinity. So he lets the herd of fifty alone if he is a wise trophy-hunter. The licensed stalker therefore appears to be the last man to'i'ely upon^to kill .deer in numbers. The presence of plant-catiug animals in our forests is a real national menace, because our native forests are the main facti.u- in controlling water run .■ off, and thereby preventing excessive floods. Our native forests are insufficient in area even now to function for the purposes for which they were designed, and any damaging of what little remains must bring disaster. It is to everybody's interest that deer and the like should bo exterminated if possible. The trout fisherman, for instance, should bo much concerned, as it is essential to his sport that the streams and rivers should maintain as equable a flow as possible, and not be roaring torrents scouring out all fish food and cover at one time, then partly" dried up watercourses at other times. Occasionally we hear about sea birds and other birds attacking trout marooned in pools along partly dried up streams; but the blame should bo laid, not on the birds, but on the deer, which' had damaged the floor covering of the forest, the main factor iv maintaining equable stream flow.—l am, etc., E. V. SANDERSON.