SHOOTING SEASON.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 2 April 1927, Page 3

SHOOTING SEASON.

GAZETTE NOTICE. OPENING DATE MAY 2. Each year tlie Department cf Internal Affairs carefully - gazettes the notifications fixing the shooting season in the various .acclimatisation .districts, and adds a notice calling attention to the various provisions under the Animals Protection and Game Act, with a list of the absolutely protected birds —a copy of each of which is given to every purchaser of a game license. This notice is issued annually, and a feature about it is that, whereas tlie season is supposed to open every year on Alay 1, for 1927 permission is given only from Alay 2, May 1 being a Sunday. This appears rather stupid because, although this is the case, shooters are not prohibited from shooting game on any other Sunday of the season, which lasts actually from Alay until the end of July. It is of interest and may be news to many' guns that the only piece allowed to be used inkilling imported gt native game is a shoulder gun, and that only ,of the bore of number 12 or less, and not weighing more than ten pounds. Automatic guns, rifie and pea rifle are also prohibited. No person, says the Act,_ may use a cylinder for taking or killing game, nor ‘ ‘ the apparatus known as a silencer,” nCT shall any person use live decoys. In the Hawera district the imported and native game which may be killed are coekpheasants, Californian quail, grey duck, and black swan. Worth notice perhaps is the clause of the Animals Protection and Game Act, which states that “the public arc earnestly requested to assist in preserving for posterity, the native birds of New Zealand, and for that reason no persons is allowed tc 1 kill any protected bird, nor to rob or destroy the nest of such birds, under a penalty of £25 for every such offence. The Act deals with no less than one hundred and sixty-seven varieties of game, while it quotes ten varieties of native game that may be shot during the open season. There are thirty-two acclimatisation districts in the Dominion.