Farmers Reserve Own Shooting Rights

Northern Advocate, 27 January 1939, Page 7

Farmers Reserve Own Shooting Rights

Farmers closing property, against the shooting public, but reserving it for their own co-operative game shooting, were severely criticised in a letter received by the Hobson Acclimatisation Society from Mr A. G. McGill, Maungaturoto. Even if they took out licenses, they would still have a monopoly over the ordinary shooter, contended Mr McGill. Last year’s license was th 6 first he had held in the North, and he found that most farmers closed their properties for shooters in general; Working in conjunction with one another, farmers and their sons did not confine their actiivties to their own farms, but went on to others, said Mr McGill. Most of them, he felt sure, were shooting without licenses. “One Pays, The Other Shoots.” “As a sportsman, I have always taken out a license ever since they have been issued, and I think the time has come when the farmer or every person who wants-to shoot imported or native game should be compelled to take out a license, whether he owns the property or not. “Why should the farmer be allowed to shoot these birds that another shooter has to help pay for? If he did take out a license he would still have the monopoly over the ordinary shooter,” concluded the letter. Mr J. E. Elliott, chairman, explained at a meeting recently that the society could nqt fight against the law, which permitted a farmer to shoot'over his own property. Investigation into the matter is to be carried out by the society’s representative at Maungaturoto.