FOREST DOOMED

Hokitika Guardian, 6 December 1929, Page 3

FOREST DOOMED

DESTRUCTION BY DEER. SOUNDS REGION ATTACKED. WELLINGTON, December 4. “ I believe our New Zealand forest is doomed, unless we get rid of tire deer, and get rid of them quickly,” declared Mr A. L. Hunt (who has ji st returned to Wellington lironi -i trip to Doubtful Sound), in the course o, an interview with a “Post ” repot‘•er. Mr Hunt said that a party of thro.:- Mr H. P. Gibbs, a well-known hydro-elec-tric engineer from the Old Country, Mr H. Yickernian, civil engineer, and h 1 nisei f, and three guides—had just spent nine days in Doubtful Sound in connection with the Lake Manapouri hydro-electric scheme. They went down first in 192 f, then last year, and again this year;and, of course, ordering the country for a week or unri, as they had done each time. They went into the, holes and corners everywhere, not merely over the beaten tracks. That gave him a good chance of notuig the altered conditions since 1.5)27. “On our first two trips,” said Mr Hunt, “ although wt: found the deer verv plentiful on the eastern side of the divide, and their ravages were' quite apparent there, we did not see anything of them beyond the divide. But new they are on the other side, right down to the West Coast.

“They must he there in thoin.v:Js, too and they are doing immense damage t(, the hush. They are mu Ely 'cd deer The wapiti, of course, are at George Sound, and the moose further down. At frequent intervals, even along the track, we saw the trees all ring-harked; all the bark chewed oil six or seven foot above fh.i ground. Curiously enough, they tackle the tnnokalia, the celery-tipped pines. They seem to prefer them, hut do not -.tick to them altogether, unfortunately. Tkiy skin every hit of hark off, and the tree simply dies. On any amount of other trees we (found their horn marks all over the butts, and all the undergrowth was torn up and trampled down. The astonishing pan of it is that the declare now found in such great numbers in this, Ihe most inaccessible part of se\v Zealand, and it is evident that no

hush anywhere can now he considered

safe from their depredations. They have spread over from ihe eastern side of Lake Manapouri, where they have been for years; but it was quite a .surprise to find them on the other side. They must be very numerous to do the damage they have done. “It is a terrible thing to think of. There is no possibility of shooting them in such fearfully wild country as that, No subsidy that con'd he offered would induce men to go into it. So there is only one. way of getting rid of them, and that is by poisoning them. I think one of the host ways would he by putting down poisoned rock-salt for them to lick, as there would then be no danger of hurting the birds. Of course, not only is the area referred to a national park of great beauty, containing some of our very finest bush, but it should be, when made accessible as time goes on, a magnificent asset in regard to our tourist traffic. There is nothing to touch it anywhere else in New Zealand.”