DEATH TO DEER

Taranaki Daily News, 5 August 1931, Page 9

DEATH TO DEER

COST OF KILLING. DEPARTMENT’S POLICY. \.■ ' ■ The policy which is being pursued by the Internal Affairs Department in the killing of deer is explained in some detail in the department’s annual report, presented in the House of Representatives last week by the Minister of Internal Affairs (the Hon. P. A. de la Perrelle). The department anticipates that the cost of killing, which for the past year worked out at 6s. 4Jd. per head, will be reduced in future, as initial ex-' penses have naturally been larger than the average. “It has -been suggested that all payments for the'killing of deer should be by results, but when it is borne in mind that the department’s object is to deal effectively with infested areas, not just to kill -as many, deer as possible in a given time, it. will be realised that it is only by paying a wage that the men can be compelled to operate in the areas decided upon by the officer conducting the operations. It would be impossible to compel effectively men who are paid entirely by results always to conform to the general scheme and refrain from the undesirable ■ practice of working scattered profitably patches of country and so scattering the deer and leaving the remainder to be cleaned up by more costly methods. The contract system has also.'been advocated, but this is, at all events at the present stage, manifestly unsound. While it is possible to have a number of deer about equal to the annual natural increase—i.e., the easily getatable deer—killed by contractors at a figure below the cost per head of all deer killed by the department’s parties, the cost is an annually recurring one, and no actual permanent progress is made towards terminating the deer menace. Contractors will naturally kill only such numbers that are most profitable to them, and the remainder, which have then been made wilder and more scattered, would still have to be coped with by some organisation employed on a basis similar to that of the department; while past experience has .shown that the great distributing groups of deer which keep up the supply, and, incidentally, provide constant employment for the contractor, remain unmolested. 1

The actual cost of destroying a deer during the period under review worked out at 6s. 4Jd. Any return from the sale of skins will reduce this cost.. In considering this .cost, special consideration must be given to the very high cost of the operations on Stewart Island. Although only 263 deer were killed there, the herd Of red deer was very much depleted as the result of these operations, and very difin it e progress has been made towards keeping them in check. The heavily wooded nature of the country, however, precluded the possibility of concerted efforts or large daily kills, and the very wet season occasioned a great deal of lost time. To obtain the above results it was necessary to keep the men in the field for a long time and to spend a considerable sum on transport, launch hire, boat fares, freight, etc., and, as there were, no interested property-owners . there, the department did not receive ,®he free assistance that was forthcoming in areas on the mainland.

“It can be confidently anticipated that later costs will be lower, as the initial stages of any operations are always more costly, and expense has been incurred in exploring possible avenues of marketing skins, antlers, tusks, etc., and in conducting investigations with regard to future operations. Furthermore, unavoidably, the scattered areas in which the operations were conducted (from the Rakaia River to Ste Wart Island) has increased costs which, with the possibility of working parties’in closer proximity to one another will be remedied in future.

“No figures are available as to the number of deer destroyed,.in the North Island, but it is known that the. Wellington Acclimatisation Society has been active, and, from reports received, it appears that week-end parties and others have accounted for numbers of deer in various localities. Taking the Dominion as a whole, it is apparent from the number of deer on which the tail bonus was baid in the South Island, the numbers destroyed by this department, the State Forest Service, acclimatisation societies, and others, that deer destruction has been extensive during the year. The rougher and inaccessible country is, of course, the problem; and as this department has been entrusted wholly with the Government’s policy of deer destruction, special attention will be paid to this class of country.”