NATIVE WILD LIFE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23511, 27 May 1938, Page 7

NATIVE WILD LIFE

CONTROL POLICY CRITICISED AN UNSCIENTIFIC BASIS ROYAL SOCIETY’S PROPOSALS (Per United Press Association) WELLINGTON. May 26. The action of the Department of Internal Affairs in refusing to grant permits to any society or institution in New Zealand for the taking of protected birds during the nesting season was criticised by Mr E, F Stead, one of the honorary curators of the Christchurch Museum, at the annual meeting cf the Royal Society of New Zealand to-day. The Standing Committee of the society, it was stated, had offered the department the services of a competent committee of advice to assist in the administration of wild-life control in connection with the issue of permits, and the department’s reply that ’t was no aware of any reasons for the setting up of a committee as suggested was considered by Mr Stead as being discourteous and couched in terms offensive to the society. The president (Professor W. P. Evans) said he had expected just such a slap in the face, Mr Stead said the best way to perpetuate and increase the knowledge of birds was not to stifle investigation as the department was doing. Mr G. Archey, curator of the Auckland Museum, said no permit would be granted to any institution or society in New Zealand to take a protected bird. Mr Stead said that Mr R. A. Falla, curator of the Christchurch Museum, had applied for a permit to take a number of white-fronted terns and their nests for the purpose of making up a life history at the Canterbury Museum. The bird was one of the most numerous of the gull family in New Zealand, and nested in colonies of thousands, yet a permit had been refused, and Mr Falla had been informed that no more permits would be issued for the taking of birds during the nesting season. The proper exhabit could not be set up unless a number of skins and nests were taken, and it was obvious that the best possible protection for birds was increased knowledge about them. Such work by the museums should be definitely encouraged. “As far as the wild life of this country is concerned,” said Mr Stead, “it seems to be controlled by a policy not of sense but of sentiment,”

Mr Archey moved: “ That the council reaffirms its opinion that the administration of the Animals Protection and Game Act in regard to permits is not sufficiently based on scientific considerations, and considers it essential that a competent committee of advice and adjudication on this matter should be set up and consulted on all applications received and on other matters of wild life control.”

Seconding the motion, Mr Stead said there were various small tarns and lagoons throughout New Zealand which still carried their original fauna and flora, but these were being stocked by acclimatisation societies with trout. "There are many members of acclimatisation societies who would stock their grandmothers’ water jugs with trout if they thought they could get five minutes’ extra fishing,” declared Mr Stead. If this committee were set up, one of its first duties would be to make acclimatisation societies obtain permits before carrying out further •stocking, and most of the requests would be refused. “We are having some parts of our fauna exterminated at the present time without any restriction whatever.” The motion was carried unanimously.