DEER VERSUS FORESTS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20708, 4 May 1929, Page 10

DEER VERSUS FORESTS.

TO THE EDITOR Sib, —Every true lover of New Zealand must have been appalled on reading J. Scott Thomson's letter in the Daily Times of April 23. It is headed “ Deer Versus Forests,” and makes mention of Mr Herrick’s recent hunting trip to the Fiord Land. The horrifying aspect of the case lies in what the deerstalker recounts of what he saw of the ravage wrought by the last imported pest, the wapiti. When will New Zealanders in general wake up to the fact that these alien animals, while affording a short ephemeral sort of recreation to those who indulge in the ch<use of them, are only encouraging what will inevitably prove {if drastic measures are not used) serious and irreparable loss to ou native land. Surely the impo,'tation of such huge beasts as wafjiti (to say nothing of red deer) into a comparatively small country as this was nothing less than insensate folly—-rather madness. If this. sort of thing is not upsetting the balance of Nature, what is, one may well and reasonably ask? For these bulky mammals must need a correspondingly huge amount of food to keep thei That food consisting largely of bark, then good-bye to our bonnie beech bush! And then farewell to many species of our beautiful native birds, which not alone the wapiti and its kind by their forest depredations, but the loathsome stoat and weasel, are sweeping out of the land, once so rich in varied bird and floral life! Is it not enough to. make, the blood of the most phlegmatic individual, if he be anything of a true lover, of his country, boil with righteous indignation, when he reads of such an atrocity as Mr J. S. Thomson’s letter makes so plain? All honour to those who, like the New Zealand Native Birds’ Protection Society, ere doing their duty in seeking to save what remains of bush and bird life! Trusting that their efforts wilj yet be rewarded, and that a right sentiment will prevail to bring about a better state of things in Aotearoa.—l am, etc., J. D. B.