HEAVY TOLL OF TROUT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21932, 16 October 1934, Page 6

HEAVY TOLL OF TROUT

DEPREDATIONS OF SHAGS ANGLERS EXPRESS CONCERN That the increasing number of shags in New Zealand constitutes a serious menace to the trout population of streams has long been the opinion of anglers. In order to make possible an organised scheme of destruction, the New Zealand Acclimatisation Societies Association at the recent conference in Wellington decided to issue a questionnaire to societies. It was hoped the answers would establish beyond reasonable doubt the seriousness of the situation. • . __ New Plymouth anglers say that live mainly 011 trout owing to the lac that they do their hunting during t day when eels, which they might otherwise feast upon, are hidden. Sometimes they come down to the seashore ana devour herrings, etc., but even in tna case they do a certain amount °° *j sn " ing at the mouths of the rivers. J- lie y certainly seem to have developed a unfortunate appetite for trout. Shags build their nests in colonics, known as rookeries, each nest of twigs and river herbage or built upon a horizontal bough. gencrallv lay four greenish eggs heavily coated with lime. AY hen hunting shag generally move in pairs, swimming under water at an amazing speed ana •chasing their prey until it is eorner _ or exhausted. One fisherman estimat that a shag accounts for 30 trout day, and there are several records as many as seven good-sized nsii Dei y found in a shag's stomach. The shag can swallow a young trout of any size up to about eleven niches. In view, therefore, of the vast num _ of fry liberated in the streams dur g the last five years, their depredations are believed to be extensive, tor trout weighs a pound only after a three and a-half years. Therefore, few recently liberated fry hsne J reached an age when they are mini from attack.