KILLING OF GAME BIRDS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22540, 3 October 1936, Page 17

KILLING OF GAME BIRDS

BOROUGH SANCTUARIES WARNING GIVEN BY MINISTER [BY TELEGRAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION] WELLINGTON. Friday "Parliament passed a law to protect native and game birds, and the police, assisted by the Department of Internal Affairs and the acclimatisation societies, will see that law is fully administered," said the Minister of Internal Affairs, the Hon. W. E. Parry, yesterday "A person who kills game and other birds in the waters of public reserves which are sanctuaries merits the utmost penalty the law provides." Mr. Parry was referring to several complaints that had reached him officially lately of birds —wild duck and pukeko mostly—which had been killed in permanent patches of water in certain of the boroughs and on little rivers that ran through them, where they had taken up their abode. "A person who shoots or takes a bird from any of these little streams of a town whore people, particularly children, like to see water birds with their young, is no sport or lover of nature," the Minister said. "It is because of the depredations of persons of that type, lacking in all public spirit and feeling, that laws have to be passed to punish them." Only that morning a resident of the Hutt Valley had brought him a complaint that some unsportsmanlike person had wantonly killed some native ducks and pukeko in the Waiwetu River, the delight of the people of the district while they were rearing their young, which had made the vandal's offence greater. Quite apart from breaking the law, said the Minister, it was inconceivable that a person should be so wanting in sportsmanship and civic pride and thought.