GAME NUISANCES AT KATIKATI.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10420, 19 April 1897, Page 3

GAME NUISANCES AT KATIKATI.

• Mr. 0, E. MacMillan, Castle Grace, writes as follows :—With the advent of the shooting season I would like, through the medium of your paper, to point out several grievances that country settlers have against their artificial enemies in the shape of acclimatisation societies ; who, by thoii professed desire to supply this country with sport, have added nuisance after nuisance, under the impression that they were benefiting the country at large. Take their pheasants and quails, for they claim them, and although perfectly willing to accept a guinea from a man for permission to rid himself of pests, are not so willing, I am sure, to give his neighbour with a crooked eye and unsteady hand, compensation for damages done, which in many cases are extensive, especially in spring and autumn. Then, their stoats and weasels. If a farmer loses a sheep, or a flock of sheep, by his neighboar's dogs, he can get compensation ; but if his poorer neighbour loses his flock of hens by stoats and weasels ho has to smile and look happy. These little brutes are increasing at an alarming rate in this district, and as there are no rabbits or hares here it is to be hoped they are living high op game. It is a singular thing, and one that on reflection must strike any sane person as ridiculous, that whereas the shooting of imported game, which is more or less a nuisance, and artificially fed, is hedged round with divers pains and penalties the shooting of native game, than which none better exists, is open to anyone that is able. Any sportsman will toll you that native game is getting scarcer, and will also tell you that there is more real sport in wildfowl shooting than in shooting garden-fed poultry. Why not conserve the native game, and hedge ib round with pains and penalties, andhavo a guinea or two-guinea license for shooting any native game, and devote the proceeds to paying so much a head for all pheasants shot out of season ? By such a policy in a tew years there will be game for all, no nuisances, and a larger surplus by a few shillings. But, seriously, it is time the shooting of native game is charged for, as this indiscriminate use of firearms is having a most depopulating effect upon it. Koine day an irate farmer who has been defeated by an old cock pheasant in a three months' bloodthirsty campaign, will carry out his threat and shoot " that there blessed Sassiety," and then there'll be a commotion.