OUR NATIVE GAME.

Otago Witness, Issue 2455, 3 April 1901, Page 48

OUR NATIVE GAME.

The shooting season for native game opened on Monday, and during the ensuing holidays hundreds of sportsmen will endeavour by all the means at their command to still further reduce the fast-diminishing numbers of wild ducks and such other native birds as the Government and the Acclimatisation Society in their magnanimity choose to brand for the slaughter. Time was when wild ducks sat in moving masses on our lakers — thousands upon thousands, covering acres at a time, — and every sheltered nook by river and stream was instinct with bird life. But in the days when Acclimatisation Societies were not, and every mau was a lar/ unto himself, the wild ducks were shot down by the thousand with small cannon firing pounds' weight cf duck shot, and by heavy shoulder-pieces almost as destructive. When it was discovered that wild ducks were rapidly disappearing some attempt was made to restrict the slaughter, and it appears to be only a question of time when these interesting birds will have to be risidly preserved as representatives of a di&appearing race. Wood-pigeons, kakas, and pukaki are protected this year, and it is a moot point whether they

should not be protected altogether. Wood-pigeons and kakas were also very plentiful iv the early day? of the settlement, but the destructive effect of the sportman's gun has well-nigh rendered them extinct — or, at any rate, they are rapidly becoming scarce. Throughout the great Tautuku forest, where pigeons were to be found a few j'ears ago in great abundance, they have been cruelly thinned down by wanton slaughter. Everywhere else in Otago they are practically extinct, and ifc is doubtful whether any appreciable recovery will be noticeable even after several close seasons, for the native pigeon breeds but slowly with its one or two eggs each year. Although the kaka is more prolific, it, too, is fast disappearing, and is only found in limited numbers in the remotest forests, beyond the reach of the too eager sportsman's gun. As for the swamp-hens, or swamp-turkeys, as ti^ey are often called, a few stragglers may now be seen on the marsh lands in the vicinity of Lakes Waihola and Waipori, where countless thousands once found a happy hunting ground. The pukaki is partial to grain, and without doubt the poison laid for rabbits has had a disastrous effect, as it has in the case of the wood-hen and other native ground birds. The prohibition of shooting on the two lakes referred to wili give the young ducks a, chance for their lives, to say nothing: of the wild g_-e*<?, which are rapidly increasing there. It seems that unless the slaughter of our game birds is restricted, cither by means of shortening the duration of the shooting season or by imposing a stiff license, the close season for native game will have to' be considerably pxtenacd.