ARMED DEPREDATIONS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27258, 8 December 1949, Page 6

ARMED DEPREDATIONS

Black Market Gangsters

Wholesale Poaching In Britain

By Astley Hawkins, a Reuter Correspondent in London

Black market gangs using fast cars, Sten guns, poison gas, and hand grenades are stripping Britain’s moors and rivers of game and fish in night raids. owners everywhere are calling for quick official combative action. Predatory bands with guerrilla tactics are making fortunes in view of persisting food restrictions. Night after night police, game wardens, and water bailiffs get reports of the work of gangs who. dynamite salmon pools, round up deer herds by car lights, or .'“-gas" pheasants off their woodland perches. - Fears have been expressed in Parliament that unless something is done toon the country may for ever lose lOme of its famous sporting assets. Owners of private fishing preserves and game areas complain that they eannot afford to police every foot of their ground through the year. Some of the greatest estates spread for miles across wild Scottish glens and moors. ; In remote parts of the country a' hand grenade dropped into a salmon pool produces only a muffled explosion, leaving the gangsters undisturbed to collect, in a few minutes, perhaps £IOO sterling worth of fi£h floating stunned

and helpless on the surface of the water. If noise is dangerous they know of mild poisons which do the same work quietly and quickly without harming the flavour of the fish. l On the moors or in forests they can use war-time Sten guns to mow down herds of bewildered deer caught in the beams of motor headlights. The noise of the firing does not carry far over the lonely hills and lochs. Or, if disturbed, they use their guns to cover their escape. Chased across country recently by an owner and his wife who were searching for poachers, armed gangsters put bullets through the windscreen of the owner’s car before they fled. “Foreign” Tactics

> “Domestic” poachers who are an accepted part of country life have only contempt for the modern gangs who slay and wound without restraint or feeling. No local poacher would wound a beast and leave it suffering.

Deer forests in some highland areas Of Scotland have never known so many wounded beasts are in the last two or three years. Even female animals with young have been slaughtered or mutilated in and out of season. Always in a hurry to get away with their spoils, the gangsters carve off the best joints on the spot and leave the carcass to rot.

; in this way, more than 20 or 30 deer may be killed in one area in a night and loaded into cars for city delivery next morning. Farmers are worried because the rotting flesh of slain deer has, multiplied birds of prey which also threaten their young lambs. But it is in the rivers that most of the damage has been done. Salmon and trout, already the victims of draught, pollution, overfishing and an alarming increase in otters, are now fighting for their lives against mass poaching.

Dry summers and increased industrialisation along river banks began the sad story years ago. Neglect in the maintenance of well-stocked streams during the war years and the great increase of anglers on limited Waters have done more harm. The majestic salmon, king of the rivers with a controlled price of seven shillings and threepence a pound on his head in Britain, has suffered worst of all. He is the easiest and quickest form of profit to the poacher. Long before he find his way up the higher reaches of his own river to spawn after a year or so in the sea, the salmon is ambushed in the estuary by mten wading waist high with nets. v High Rewards '

Poachers have been getting five shillings per pound weight for salmon from wholesalers who can legally charge five shillings and sixpence to shops Gangs which have killed up to 100 salmon in a night, averaging perhaps 101 bin weight, can clear £250 sterling between them—at the .cost of a few hours’ lost sleep. Along some salmon rivers in Devon-shire-last hummer, tourists were being offered fine fish, caught illegally, for £7 sterling each; and they bought ihem. Government concern over the whole situation is not limited to dwindling rame supplies and the increase of countryside law-breakers. Britain’s best fishing and game preserves have long been rented international sportsmen, and salmon, deer and grouse as much as motor ' cars and Scotch whisky, are to-day recognised as dollar earners.

Rluchers all sizes, 18s 6d Pair, a * Harold Beath, Stuart street (next Turnbull and Jones).— Advt.