FOREST DOOMED.

Thames Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 17763, 10 December 1929, Page 5

FOREST DOOMED.

DESTRUCTION BY DEER. ?

SOUNDS REGION ATTACKED.

RED DEER IN THOUSANDS. "I b-elieve our New Zealand forest is doomed, unless we get rid of the deer, and" get rid of them quickly,"'declared Mr. A. L. Hunt (who has just returned to Wellington from a trip to Doubtful Sound), in the course of an interview with a reporter. Mr. Hunt said that a party of three—Mi> H. P. Gibbs, a well-known hydro - electric engineer from the Old Country, Mr. H. Vickerman, civil engineer, and himself, and three guides—had just spent nine days in Doubtful Sound in connection with the Lake Manapouri hydro-electric scheme. They went down first in 1927. then last year, and again this year; and, of course, exploring the country for a week or more, as they had done' each time. They went into the holes and corners everywhere, not merely over the beaten tracks. That gave him a good chance of noting the altered conditions since 1927. "On our first twe trips,' said Mr. Hunt, "although we found the deer very plentiful on the eastern sidex.of the divide, and their ravages were quite apparent there, we did not see anything of them beyond tUe divide. But now they are on the other side, right /down to the West Coast.

"They must be there in thousands,* too, and they are doing immense damage to the bush. They are mostly red deer. The wapiti, of course, are, at- . v George Sound, and the moose further .. down. At frequent intervals, even along the track, we saw the trees all: ring-barked; all the bark chewed off six or seven feet above the ground. Curiously enough, they tackle the tanekaha, the celery-tipped pines. They seem to prefer them, but do not stick to them altogether, unortunately. They skin every bit of bark off, and the tree simply dies. On any amount of other trees we found their horn marks all over the butts, and all the undergrowth was torn up and-trampled**** down. The astonishing part of it is : .", that the deer are now found in such/ great numbers in this, the most inac-/ cessible part of New Zealand, and it isV ; ' evident that no bush anywhere can now be considered safe from their depreda--tions. They have spread over from the : , eastern side of Lake Manapouri, where they have been for years; but it was quite a surprise to find them on the other side. They must be very num.- v : erous to do the r damage they have done. ■ "It is a terrible thing to think of. There is no possibility of shooting them in such fearfully wild country as : that. No subsidy that could be offered would induce men to go into it. So there is only one way of getting rid of them, and that is by poisoning them. I think one of the best ways would he by putting down poisoned rock-salt fortljem to lick, as there would then be no danger "f hurting the birds. Of course, not only is the area referred to a national park of great beauty, containing some of our very fine'st bust , but it should he, when made accessible as time goes on, a magnificent asset in regard to our tourist traffic. - There h nothing to touch it anywhere else in New Zealand."