FORESTS AND DEER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22109, 15 May 1935, Page 15

FORESTS AND DEER

Sir, —May I add my mite to correspondence in your columns on the subject of the extermination of forests .and deer. To ensure regular seasons, adequate rainfall and freedom from droughts, sandstorms, cloudbursts, floods, soil and river erosion, etc., experts in the United States of America tell us that 25 per cent of the area of a country should be covered \vith forests. The proximity of the Waitakere Ranges to Auckland has, therefore, an important influence on its climate, an 1 therefore the destruction of the forests and consequent deterioration of climate is an evil to be avoided. Also, the decision of the New Zealand Government to exterminate the deir from New Zealand forests is to be deplored, because forests on the one hand, and the creatures inhabiting them on the other, each need the other for their natural preservation. Birds and animals provide food to the roots of trees in the form of dung, droppings, carcases and bones and eggshells, and food to the leaves of the tree s in the carbon dioxide which they exhale. Moreover, birds and deer are the natural scavengers of forests, for they consume the injurious insects, beetles and pests, fungoids and parasitic growths that are a menace to the life of forests. The Creator made it. so, and His way is the best way. Blaming the deer for causing soil erosion in forests by eating the mossy growths is not justified, seeing that forest floors are principally composed of dead leaves, dead twigs and dead roots which the deer, do not eat. The floors of the mighty Himalayan forests of India are intact to-day, though they have been inhabited for centuries by hordes of deer, goats and wild animals. It is significant that in 1929 Canada initiated a policy of restocking the northern forests with reindeer, imported from Alaska. Thomas A. F. Stone.