DEER AND WILD PIGS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21411, 8 February 1933, Page 6

DEER AND WILD PIGS

STEWART ISLAND MENACE

WOMAN STALKER'S VISIT

A woman deer-stalker, Mrs. Reid. from Hanmer Springs, while visiting Stewart Island, recently took a trip to the western beaches of the inland. With a friend for company and a local guide she visited several of the ambergris camps at Mason's Bay and Hellfire Beaches, travelling as far as the Devil's Cave. Deer were numerous on the beaches and sandy slopes and the visitor accounted for four in the short time she spent there. An interesting sight to the visitor's eye was the frolicking of the deer on the beaches on moonlight nights. Every fine evening deer come down to the sana and race up and down the beaches evidently to stretch their limbs after feeding in the bushy hills, Mrs. Reid did not attempt to shoot in the moonlight preferring to watch their gambols. At times the deer appear to be having a genuine race running the full length of the beach. At present' they are mostly young hinds and spikei ; s as the bigs stags are in the velvet and are in retirement among the deepest part of the "forests. Another recent visitor said she thought the deer would become a great pest to the people farming at Mason's Bay, while they were also likely to ruin the beautiful bush all along the west side of Stewart Island from Smokey Beach to South Cape. Deer were also very numerous at Ruggedy and Easy Harbour.

Wild pigs and cattlel the visitor remarked, were also plentiful at Ruggedy, but they would not destroy the bush as would the deer, which chew the bark off young trees, eventually destroying the natural regeneration of the forest. Something should be quickly done to check the menace, he, thought.