DEER MENACE.

Southland Times, Issue 22042, 15 June 1933, Page 3

DEER MENACE.

To the Editor. Sir,—Mr J. B. Thomson wants still more enlightenment, so I will have another try to oblige him, although 1 am of the opinion it would be as easy to convince him of the absurdity of some of the statements his propagandists are retailing about deer, as it would be for the proverbial camel to pass through the eye of a needle. In the March number of the New Zealand Fishing and Shooting Gazette, Captain E. V. Sanderson of the N.8.P.5., made the following statement regarding deer. “Plant-eating animals, which the foremost authorities have warned us against, have been distributed and protected, and are protected to-day, in many cases to the detriment of our rivers and streams, which come rushing down in heavy rain periods scouring out fish food and c ° v^ r > at the same time bringing down debris submerging or eroding the more fertile lower lands, while the cream of the soil goes out to sea. Thus, while it takes 400 years for the forests to form one inch of top soil, man destroys an inch in from five to fifty years, according to the steepness of the country and intensity of the destruction of the shrub and tree covering.” Now for rebutting evidence, as our legal brethern term it. . In reply to this, Mr Eric Gillespie, of Hawera," writes: “Much ink has been spilled regarding the damage done to our forests by deer, and Captain Sanderson carries this a stage further, giving us interesting figures relating to erosion. “The writer has been wandering in our biggest deer forests for fifteen years, and has yet to be convinced that deer do a fraction of the damage credited to them. That stags kill a few trees by barking them is true, but take a walk through a deer infested bush and count up how many barked trees you see. Having read Captain Sanderson’s article before going stalking this year, I took particular notice of the conditions in the forests (Birch forest), we have no so-called native bush in this locality. “When the birches are big the forest floor is a maze of roots which make the walking rather difficult, little undergrowth is encountered. When trees are smaller, young birch and several species of small trees (I am no botanist) are so thick that progress except on a deer trail, is almost impossible. Climb high out of the bush line, and we find the veronica family so firmly entrenched that even the deer give it a wide berth, except on a few leading ridges. We came across several old land slides on which young birch and other trees and shrubs had taken root so thickly that to get through comfortably one had to use the axe and clear a trail. Now this general condition of the forest is to be found practically throughout the Makarora, Hunter and Dingle Valleys, where deer ardfc as numerous as anywhere. All around one can see where water action has gone on for centuries—cutting away in one place, building in another. In other places where comparatively recent snow-slides have ripped right through the bush from top to bottom, carrying all before them, young birches and shrubs are gradually closing inward towards the centre from either side and in very few years only a bush filled gut will be seen, where now shows fairly bare ground.” The Editor’s note: "We fully agree with Mr Gillespie’s contentions. If, instead of laying the blame on the deer, the N.B.P. Society tried to get a law passed compelling all landowners to keep certain proportion of hilly land in bush, instead of firing it, some good would be done. It was never a deer that killed the bush from Wellington to Mangaroa and Waikanae, but Man—the destroyer—and the barren clay smeared hills are a reproach to the powers that permitted him to rape our primal verdure for a little tenthrate grazing, and cause the erosion of the lower valley lands with excessive run off.”

This also appears under the heading “Deer in National Park.” “An opinion that there was no need for alarm at the numbers of deer in the Arthur’s Pass, National Park, was expressed by Professor Arnold Wall at the meeting of the board yesterday. He added there need be no hurry over their destruction. The bush was so dense that the deer had well defined tracks, and apart from that, did not appear to be doing much damage.” A Southlander writes regarding deer in Eglington Valley, where they have been for at least twenty years. “I was discussing this matter with Mr Dolamore, the local Conservator of State Forests, and he states that the same applies to the Hollyford River Valley running into Martin’s Bay on the West Coast. Deer were apparently more numerous in the Hollyford ten years ago than they are to-day. In this country, apparently ideal for deer, Mr Dolamore states that they have done no damage to the native flora or bush, and apparently never will do any.” Mr J. Forbes, the leading authority on deer in New Zealand, thus comments in an editorial in June New Zealand Fishing Gazette —writing of the mess-up of the deer. “For this state of affairs we can thank a benign Government, who were stampeded by incompetent persons and crank societies, who made a big enough noise to gain their point. We have lived to see a good manly sport spoilt simply through ignorance and bad management, and New Zealand, the only country in the world where deer are treated as a pest. In most countries they are protected and controlled to provide sport for local and visiting sportsmen, despite all the ‘slosh’ written and said regarding the menace of deer to the forests and native birds. This has been grossly exaggerated by those who have done their worst to crab the deer. We know that deer and other game animals have lived for hundreds of years in the great forests of Germany and Austria, and the forests are still there. This is due to the practical management; and the same results could have been had in New Zealand had the Government been wisely advised. “A sum of £6OOO was voted last year for deer destruction. After the long sermons we have had about the for economy, it is a farce and an absolute waste of public money to put an expensive Government deer-killing gang in the wilds of South Westland. The only parts there of any pastoral use are the main river flats. These had been culled by a practical man to the satisfaction of the owner, who refused to allow the Government party to shoot on his country.” Mr Editor, I take it that the privilege granted to correspondents making use of your columns was not to allow them to heave verbal bricks at one another, but to allow readers who could thus be made cognizant of both sides of the argument to judge for themselves and the subject matter to be interesting should be educative. This is my excuse for butting in on this deer question to put both sides before your reading public, for up till lately the deer stalkers have not thought it worth while contradicting some of the fallacious and ridiculous statements emanating from or issued under the aegis of the Native Bird Protection Society.

Although not bearing on the point at issue, the following excerpt from the New Zealand Fishing Gazette of February last by Mr K. Dalrymple, should be of sufficient interest to your readers to warrant printing. Mr Dalrymple was relating some of his experiences on a big game hunt in Alaska. Another passenger on board was the representative of the U.S.A. Department of Internal Affairs, returning from a visit of inspection of the reindeer herds of Alaska. These animals do not belong naturally to .Alaska, but the Rev. Sheldon Jackson, in charge of education in Alaska, found that whalers and trappers had so disturbed the country, especially along the Arctic coast, that the barren land caribou were driven away and the natives were greatly in need of food. He urged the U.S.A. Government to introduce reindeer, and in 1892, one hundred and sixty were imported, and established at Teller, on Seward Peninsula in the Bering Strait. Since then a total of 1300 have been imported from Lapland. With them came Laplanders trained in their work of looking after them. The success of this venture has been phenomenal. The total number is now about 1,000,000 head, and it is considered that Alaska alone can run 4,000,000 of them. The herds are divided into mobs of about 3000. in charge of and belonging to the natives, but all under Government supervision. “The gentleman on board had been to inspect these herds, and this he had accomplished by aid of aeroplanes, traversing in three weeks a country over five times the area of New Zealand, word having been sent on earlier in the season for the various herds to be at different places at certain times. One of the objects of his visit had been to start off a mob of 3000 on a journey up to the Arctic coast near the mouth of the Mackenzie River in the northwest territory of Canada. The herd had to follow a previously selected route so as to be sure of food, and as well, sites had to be found where the herds could stop while calves were born, as the time taken to cover the distance was estimated to be three years. Reindeer are domestic animals, and are no trouble to handle. They do not go wild, and take to work in a team with no bother, or can ba caught and milked without trouble. “This reindeer business will have some effect on our beef trade. There are two companies in Alaska with cold storage plants and ships supplying the West Coast of America with meat. The quantity now being exported is con* siderable, and it is estimated that 75,000 tons of meat a year will soon be available. It is a cheaply produced article. The grazing is there naturally, the owners have little use for money, and no very expensive plant is required where the killing is done, which is carried out generally in the following way:—Cold storage barges are moved into different suitable rivers and bays just before winter comes in; during the early winter, the natives drive the reindeer down to these places and kill all surplus stock, which is stored in the barge under practically natural cold storage conditions, until the ice goes out in the spring and allows the barge with its load of meat to be moved to the main port at Teller or Golovin for shipment to the south. So here is a supply of meat equal to nearly 1,000,000 quarters of beef, or 2J million carcasses of mutton pel’ year, coming from a country that has almost certainly never been taken into account- when meat supplies are being checked up. Another instance of the difficulty of forecasting how man and his methods will affect the food supply of the world.”—l am, etc., A. E. TAPPER.