EXTENSIVE POACHING

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 640, 17 April 1929, Page 7

EXTENSIVE POACHING

SOCIETY ALARMED “MORE FINES NEEDED” The extent of poaching in the Auckland district has come under the notice of the Auckland Acclimatisation Society. A member at a meeting of the society’s council last evening said that offenders should be dealt with severely. “I know of a case within eight miles of the city,” he said, “where man goes out every moonlight night and comes back with a duck. Poaching is going on under our eyes, and we must have more convictions for the taking of game out of season.” In certain pheasant localities, the numbers of birds have not been equalled for some years, Mr. F. E. McKenzie told the meeting. At Clevedon, 35 young birds had just been liberated. The society decided to increase the vote for pheasant breeding for 1930 from £6OO to £BSO, and to place orders for 1,500 birds, 150 cock pheasants to be retained for liberation at the end of the season. A Katikati resident sent in a suggestion that preserved partridge eggs should be imported for local hatching. Although the writer cited a case of the hatching in England of New Zealand hen eggs, the council considered the idea too risky. On the suggestion of Mr. C. A. Whitney, the possibility of importing snipe from Colombo is to be investigated. Replying to a complaint regarding the declaration of a closed season for pukeko, the Minister of Internal Affairs, the Hon. P. A. de la Perrelle, said he would not be able to .grant an open season until the results of scientific investigation in connection with pukeko were known. Consideration would be given to requests from people whose property was being damaged.