GREY DUCK'S LOSING FIGHT

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 98, 22 October 1938, Page 8

GREY DUCK'S LOSING FIGHT

The wild duck's simulation of a' broken wing, as it decoys a human intruder away from the spot where its ducklings are hidden, is-—or used to be—a familiar spectacle. But there are wild clucks and wild ducks. Some seem to have forsaken the breeding and feeding shallows for the out-ofrrange central waters of lakes, and prolong their lives by being where the guns cannot reach them, but where they themselves are unable to carry on the normal life of a wild duck. The Minister of Internal Affairs, Mr. Parry, drawing a somewhat bold conclusion, told the acclimatisation society delegates yesterday, that

ducks do not feed out in lakes, but where they can paddle. The birds we shoot every season are young ducks, because the old ducks rise straight up and fly away when we begin shooting. They do not breed, as is shown by their flying away instead of hovering and trying to delude the shooter. Breeding ducks are becoming fewer and fewer every year. If nothing is done they may vanish.

Whether or not the ducks that prove themselves on May 1 to be "old and wise" have all become nonbreeders, we do not know; but it is beyond doubt that interference with the feeding and breeding of grey clucks by swamp reclamation and by too much shooting has reached a point at which the future of the grey duck is threatened. This species of native game has carried an increasing burden, and its back is breaking. There is one silver lining to the cloud. In the recent past shootists have refused to admit that they are engaged on a work of extermination. New Zealand is fortunate in having a Minister who ,is not afraid to look the fact in the face; and the admission that murder is afoot is at least the first step to some practical measure of reprieve. But will shootists, even now, accept" and observe the idea of two close seasons in three years?