PARADISE DUCK & PUKEKO.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXXIX, Issue 6334, 28 April 1923, Page 1

PARADISE DUCK & PUKEKO.

OPEN SEASON DECLARED IN THE

SOUTH,

An unpleasant surprise is in store for the paradise duck and pukeko in some of the southern districts. The absolute immunity which these birds have enjoyed, or are supposed to be enjoying, from the ruthless guns could avoid doing so would give way to the packers, but would prefer to of sportsmen is this season to be broken. It has fallen to the Minister of Internal Affairs to sanction the notification which will doubtless give delight to sportsmen and satisfaction to acclimatisation societies. \ The question whether there should he an open season was well discussed ,on the occasion of the interflow which a deputation representative yQf . bird protection, forestry and otherifinterests had with the Minister. The deputation was inimical to the proposal to disturb the absolute protection enjoyed by the paradise duck and pukeko, and the Minister, in his reply, submitted frankly the nature of the evidence on the other side. This he did, it. must be recognised, in a manner showing that very careful consideration had been devoted to the whole matter, and presenting a substantial measure of justification for the decision to withdraw the absolute protection which has been given to the birds. His conclusion that the weight of evidence has pointed to the desirability of a short open season seems scarcely assailable. There may he, of course, the question of the assailability of the evidence itself. Sir Thomas Mackenzie, a member of the deputation, said that the Minister “had not got the truth,” and other members of the deputation were not sparing in their criticism of the policy and motives of the acclimatisation societies. The animadversions doubtless prompted the Minister to his concluding remark: “It is very difficult to believe that I have been deliberately misled by the acclimatisation societies.” But upon the evidence upon which it was based, Mr Downie Stewart’s statement was effective. He has relied upon the opinion of leading ornithologists for guidance as much as upon that of the acclimatisation societies. The case, briefly put, is that the birds in some districts have become numerous to the extent of being a nuisance in the respect that they damage the crops of the farmers, whom they force in self defence to lay poison, and that in these circumstances the best method of protecting the birds is to declare a short open season, with a limited bag, so that the farmers, with a promise of a little shooting before them, may regard the birds with a benevolent eye and banish the thought of poison. It is suggested, too, that the birds, when disturbed by shooting, fly high and' escape to the hack country. We hope they will. The Minister ,of Internal Affairs is a clear reasoner, and these arguments, taken in conjunction with, statements respecting the plentiful ness of paradise duck and pukeko in the south, have convinced him that absolute protection is undesirable in certain districts. There is no difficulty in agreeing that if the alternative to a short season is the wholesale destruction of these birds by poisoning, then the open season represents the lesser eril. Tt - must at least be conceded that a reasonable case has been made out for a short open season—perhaps the shorter the better —for paradise duck and pukeko in selected localities.