NATURE—AND MAN.

Southland Times, Issue 22010, 9 May 1933, Page 3

NATURE—AND MAN.

CONTROL OF NEW ZEALAND. DEER OR PEOPLE? (Edited by Leo Fanning.) — If New Zealand’s people do not gain a proper control of wild life here, the wild life (mainly the huge hordes of deer) will take control of the people, in the sense that the animals’ destruction of vitally necessary forests would seriously affect the capacity of the country for the maintenance of human life. . New Zealand’s famous botanist, Dr. L. Cockayne, has repeatedly warned the public about the deer danger. “These priceless forests of ours,” he says, “are in imminent danger of being transformed into debris-fields and waste ground, and the water which they controlled become master, pouring down the naked slopes after each rainstorm, bearing with it heavy loads of stone, gravel and clay to bury the fertile, arable lands below and occasion floods in the rivers. Is the protection of deer and the like to be permitted to lead to such disaster? It seems unthinkable that anyone interested in the prosperous development of New Zealand, knowing the facts, could answer the above question in the affirmative, though a few doubtless will argue that deer, in limited numbers should be allowed. Possibly, if certain deer-for-ests were set aside and deer strictly limited thereto it might meet the case. But even this seems a dangerous method of dealing with a most serious question. Absolute extermination seems far and away the more reasonable policy.” Survival of the Fittest. About a century and a half before Christ, a famous Roman patriot, Cato, firmly held the belief that the Roman Empire would not be able to feel safe while Carthage was allowed to survive. It is recorded that one day in the Senate House he drew a bunch of early ripe figs from his robe, and threw the fruit on the floor, to the amazement of his colleagues. “Those figs,” he said, “were gathered but three days ago in Carthage; so close is our enemy to our walls!” From that day on, whenever he was called upon for his vote in the Senate on any matter whatever, he made only one remark: “Delendaest Carthago” (“Carthage must be destroyed”). In his view the safety of his State required that drastic action, and he believed that it was absurd to bother about less important affairs until that safety was assured. His persistence won the Senate to his opinion, and Carthage was destroyed. Similarly, New Zealand , needs a Cato, a legislator who will gather rubble from the forest floors that have been ravaged by deer, throw the stones on the floor of the House of Representatives and exclaim: “The deer must be destroyed.” As the deer are imported aliens they have no right to a living in the native forest here. As they have no natural enemies, they will multiply into many millions unless a war of extermination is organized against them. In “More Science From an Easy Chair,” Sir Ray Lankester, after some remarks on peculiar animals of Australia. makes special mention of New Zealand. “Strange as Australia is,” he writes, “New Zealand is yet stranger. Long as .the isolation of Australia has endured, and archaic and primitive, in essential characters as is its living freight of animals and plants navigated (as it were) in safety and isolation to our present days, yet New Zealand .has a still more primitive, a more ancient cargo. When we divide the land surfaces of the earth according to their history as indicated by the nature of their living fauna and flora and their geological structure, and fossilized remains of their past inhabitants, it becomes necessary to separate the whole land surface into two primary sections; (a) New Zealand, and (b) the rest of the world.” Various birds help to give New Zealand this distinction. Some of these birds are extinct, and others are in danger of passing away unless the people take a strong protective interest in them. Threat of the Aliens. New Zealanders should be keenly interested in the chapter, “Animal Life in New Zealand,” in Sir Ray Lankester’s book. Here is one passage which commands earnest attention and calls for action:—“Here I may state the great principle which, in regard to plants as well as animals, determines the survival of intruders from one region, to another. It appears that setting aside the very special and peculiar adaptations to quite exceptional conditions in a given area, the living things, whether plants or animals, which are brought to or naturally arrive at such an area, survive and supplant the indigenous plants and animals of that area, if they themselves are kinds (species) produced or formed in a larger or more variegated area; that is to say, formed under severer conditions of competition and of struggle with a larger variety of competitors, enemies and adverse circumstances in general. , “Applying these principles to New Zealand, we see that no country, no area of land, could have a worse chance for the survival of its animal and vegetable children than that mysterious land, isolated for many millions of years in the ocean, the home of the tuatara, solitary survivor of an immensely remote geologic age, the undisturbed kingdom of huge birds, so easy going that they have ceased to fly, and even lost their wings!” Here is a story told by Captain Power in his “Sketches in New Zealand” (1849). Of course somebody is sure to cast doubt upon it, in accordance with the fate of many popular anecdotes of history. In a note upon the morepork the author wrote: “This bird gave rise to a rather amusing incident in the Hutt Valley during the time of the fighting with Mamaku and Rangihaeata, and when, in anticipation of a morning attack a strong piquet was turned out regularly about an hour before daylight. On one occasion the men had been standing silently under arms for some time, and shivering in the cold morning air, when they were startled by a solemn request for ‘more pork.’ The officer in command of the piquet, who had only very recently arrived in the country, ordered no talking in the ranks, which was immediately replied to by another demand, distinctly enunciated, for ‘more pork.’ So malapropos a remark produced a titter . along the ranks, which aroused the irate officer to the necessity of having his commands obeyed, and he accordingly threatened to put the next person under arrest who dared make any allusion to the unclean beast. As if in defiance of the threat, and in contempt of the constituted authorities, , ‘more pork’ was distinctly demanded in two places at once, and was succeded by an irresistable giggle from one end of the line to the other. There was no putting up with such breach of discipline as this, and the officer, in a fury of indignation, went along the line in search of the mutinous offender, when suddenly a small chorus of ‘more pork’ was heard on all sides, and it was explained who the real culprits were.”