FEW MUTTON-BIRDS

Southland Times, Issue 22297, 12 April 1934, Page 8

FEW MUTTON-BIRDS

DEPREDATIONS OF RATS. DESTRUCTION OF EGGS. (From Our Stewart Island Correspondent.) Mrs J. Fife, of Halfmoon Bay, who has been on the island of Wharepuaitaha, in the Breaksea group, near Port Adventure, has returned to her home after having spent only nine days on the island mutton-birding. The reason for her return is that there are few birds owing to the depredations of rats. Where once there would be hundreds of birds Mrs Fife was able to catch only 14. She says that cats were firmly established on the island, but for some reason they have died out, thus allowing the rats to multiply. The loss is serious not only to Mrs Fife, but also to Mrs Anaha and party who have come all the way from Temuka to obtain their year’s supply of birds. Mrs Anaha is staying on the island for a further period in the hope of obtaining sufficient birds to pay expenses. Rats are very numerous on many of the islands lying off the coast of Stewart Island, and are causing havoc among the native birds. Rats are good swimmers and can easily cover the few hundred yards which separates many of the small islands from the mainland. In many cases these islands lie in groups, and once the rat becomes established on one the others round about soon become infested. For years these vermin have been destroying mutton-birds’ eggs, and in order to protect the supply the natives have cats on their islands. The cats certainly keep the rats in check, but they also prey upon the smaller native birds such as the robins and creepers, and thus commences an endless chain of slaughter which can only end in the total extinction of certain birds. _ Unfortunately Stewart Island is well supplied with both varieties of rats—the black and the grey. Both will inhabit the houses of the settlers, but whereas the grey rat will rip and tear and do considerable damage in one night, the black variety behaves more like a mouse and is content to nibble at scraps. In the bush, however, the black rat lives in the trees and thus exerts a deadly influence upon all the tree nesting birds, while his grey brother attends to the birds which nest upon the ground. The black rat is an expert climber and builds a nest not unlike that of the house sparrow, far above the ground among the vines and creepers. He is thus excellently situated for robbing the nests of birds and preys upon all and sundry, including the beautiful tuis and bellbirds.

The damage done to native birds by the “pot-hunter” is negligible when compared with that done by cats, rats, stoats and weasels. While the pothunter is shooting half a dozen birds a single rat will destroy all the eggs in a dozen nests; and it must not be forgotten that for every shooter there are thousands of rats. On a large tract of country the damage done by rats and other vermin is apt to be overlooked, because they leave little evidence of their depredations; but the island of Wharepuaitaha is a splendid example of their work, and it is to be hoped that the lesson will not go unheeded. For the benefit of interested societies it can bq stated that fears need not be entertained for the safety of the mut-ton-birds; they are valued in terms of pounds, shillings and pence, and the native owners of the islands will see to it that swift and sure methods are adopted to exterminate the rats before next mutton-birding season. But what of the other native birds, all over the country whose only value is an aesthetic and sentimental one, and whose only protectors are societies who fail to realize the real causes of destruction?