MOOSE AND WAPITI

Taranaki Daily News, 24 January 1934, Page 10

MOOSE AND WAPITI

OPEN SEASON GAZETTED. HAUNTS IN SOUNDS COUNTRY. The declaration of an open season for both moose and wapiti is contained in the Gazette. In each case the period in which shooting will be permitted extends from March 1 to April 30. The license fee in the case of moose will be £lO and for wapiti £5, and in neither case are dogs allowed to be taken with shooting parties. After deducting expenses incidental to the issuing of licenses, the revenue derived will be divided equally between the Department of Internal Affairs and the Southland Acclimatisation Society. The area in which moose may be taken lies between.Lake Manapouri and Dusky Sound, while several areas have been allotted to wapiti shooting, taking in the coastal country in the neighbourhood of George Sound and Charles Sound, with a boundary inland toward Lake Te Anau. The introduction of the wapiti into New Zealand dates back to 1908, when 18 animals were presented by the late Theodore Roosevelt and liberated at George Sound. Five years later the Southland Acclimatisation Society imported moose from North America. Since then both animals have been reported as having become acclimatised and to be multiplying. The first moose was shot by Mr. E. J. Herrick, of Hastings, in April, 1929. There have been open season for wapiti for some years, but moose shooting has been permitted only since 1929. The country in which shooting will be permitted is extremely wild and almost unexplored by either white man or native. Rainfall is almost continuous and the sportsman is faced with a most arduous trip in his search for the game. Ridges between 2000 and 3000 feet high have to be crossed and the streams are liable to sudden and dangerous floods. The dense forest reaches to a height of 3600 feet and in this type of country both animals should be hard to find and still harder to stalk. Sportsmen have reported from time to time the evasive habits of the wapiti and moose, there having been instances of animals moving freely on cliffs too steep for the passage of human beings and of their taking to the water and swimming out of danger round precipitous bluffs,