HAWKS AND GAME.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19512, 16 December 1926, Page 10

HAWKS AND GAME.

Sir, —I quite agree with some of your correspondents in saying that hawks aro not responsible for the decrease in game birds, particularly pheasants. I a gamekeeiper in England, Scotland and Ireland before coming to New Zealand, and have often watched tha hah'ier in Ireland, where they seem to be more plentiful, but have never yet known thera to kill either an old or a young pheasant. I am not going to say that they can't do it, but a fro; or a piece of offal seems to bfe more 1 to their liking. Sparrow .hawks arc deadly—afc least amongst young pheasants—but there are very few sparrow hawks in New Zealand—at least, I, have never seen one out here. No, stoats, weasels, ferrets and domestic cats have got more to do with the destruction of game and other native birds than the comparatively innocent, but much blamed harrier. Then again the number of guns have enormously increased of late. When I first came to this district pheasants were fairly numerous, andT domestic cata and shootists comparativolv few. Now pheasants are almost wipe<£ out, and if one is known to exist in any particular spot during the shooting i;eason, there is sure to be a bevy of guns on the look-out for him. It's a wonder to me that any survive, and of coarse all this goes down .to the poor harrier hawk. I think I ought to know as much about game and-hawks as most men in New Zealand, particularly the acclimatisation societies, who are now throwing no end of money away in trying to rid the country of one of its most useful scavengers. Amberite.