Animals Cause Much Damage On Coast Farms And Hills

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 March 1948, Page 6

Animals Cause Much Damage On Coast Farms And Hills

The seriousness of the damage being caused in the bush as well as on farms by deer, chamois, thar and opossum was stressed this morning al the quarterly meeting at Greymouth of the West Coast Federated Farmers, which was invited by the Westland I'.'niehmc-nr Hoard io forward details of Ihe numbers and ' damage caused by the animals. It 1 was stated that- a .survey of the wild ■ life menace in the district was being ’ made by the board in order to assist ■ the extermination programme ol the Internal Affairs Department. ‘■There is no doubt that there has 1 been a large increase in the number. of . deer, this year," said Mr _\V. Fisher, suggesting that inc reduction in the value of the skins was the 1 cause of this. “You can’t count the opossum on j

the road in the Biillor Gorge." sam the chaiman, Mr AV. H. Martm. Opossums' Activity “The opossums are an absolutemenace,” remarked Mr 11. G. Carter. “Thirty years ago there were bcauli--ful‘orchards in the Karnaka district, but now, besides taking the fruit, the c‘po;--sum have killed the tree;;.' Opossum did, however, k»-fep the blackberry down, said Mi Carter, adding that the number one enemy of orchadists was the puteeko whose clumsinesr. resulted in a large quantity of fruit being knocked to the ground and lost. “They . areworse than the opossum.” ho raid. Mr Martin added that in the Buller district opossum ' wore entering gardens and “cleaning up ' everything. There appeared to bo no vegetable they.did not like. "I could show Catchment Board

1 members where within a mile of my home (nt Koiterangi) the serious results on the forest of the. ravages of deer are evident, - ’ said Mr Wallace. “My neighbours and 1 cannot grow root crops without deer getting into the paddoks and causing an immense amount of damage,” he said, adding that hay crops also suffered. "But this,” he added, “is only minor compared with the damage on the hillsides. Though this is not apparent to the eye- of a stranger who would think that the hills were still thickly clothed, it is easily seen in the' forest, where the undergrowth lias been destroyed. When the mature timber j goes there will be nothing to replace it and when the cover goes from the slopes wo are going to have erosion in a serious form.”

Danger in High Country

As far as thar were concerned, said Mr Wallace, nobody was in a position to estimate their numbers or the damage they caused as they kept to the high country between 4000 and 5000 feet up. There were, no doubt, hundreds of chamois and they would cause damage in the tussock country above the timberline where they would injure alpine growth.

“As far as the destruction of orchards is concerned,” he added, “the ordinary blackbird in our district is the worst of the lot. They clean up everything. We can’t even sow seeds without putting a covering of wire netting across the area,” he said. •

It was left to the secretary, Mr J. Mulcare, and Mr Wallace, to reply to the Catchment Board after inviting comments from various branches of the organisation.