THE NATIVE BIRDS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21144, 30 March 1932, Page 11

THE NATIVE BIRDS.

PROTECTION ACTIVITIES. BREACHES OF REGULATIONS. HEAVIER PENALTIES URGED. Recent activities of the executive of the New Zealand Native Bird Protection Society have been concerned mainly with applications from acclimatisation societies to the Department of Internal .Affairs for an open season for pukoko; the prohibition of flip shooting of gorlwits and other game birds from motor-cars; the alleged wrongful protection of moose and wapiti in Fiordland National Dark, which is a sanctuary for indigenous flora and fauna; and the, "absurdly small " fines for the. unlawful shooting of native birds, states a progress report of the society. The prevalence of poaching is commented on in tho March issue of the society's journal Birds. " Something more than the insignificant fines so often meted out, when an occasional conviction is secured, is necessary," states a writer. He quotes a Greyniouth correspondent as follows:—"I should like to draw attention to the extraordinary inconsistencies in the fines inflicted throughout the Dominion for convictions in the case of shooting protected native birds. Within the past two years fines of £2O and £25 have been meted out to destroyers of pigeons in Tnranaki, Waikaremoana. Southland and elsewhere, while in the same period the Grey Acclimatisation Society has at great expense brought three offenders to Conrt, and after conviction the fines were £2, £2 and £l." Tn a. letter to the journal a Wairoa resident says:—"l think it is my duty to inform you of the wholesale slaughter of wild duck in this district out of season. If something is not done pretty soon pigeons, tuis and pukeko will all follow the duck."