PLEA MADE FOR BIRDS AND ANIMALS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17905, 22 July 1926, Page 13

PLEA MADE FOR BIRDS AND ANIMALS.

WELFARE WEEK TO BE HELD IN DOMINION. An Animal Welfare Week is to be held throughout New Zealand from July 25 to July 31. Sir George Fen■wick, president of the Otago Society, is to broadcast from Dunedin a speech upon the subject. The following arc extracts from the speech:— "It is fortunately the case that men and women as a rule have the spirit of kindness implanted in their breasts, and that the cruel and callous arc, by comparison, but a small part of the community. And yet those men and women—perhaps 1 should say men only—who must unhappily be ranged in the latter category, have to be reckoned with, and their cruel practices made the subject of remonstrance and less frequently of prosecution at the hands of the societies which have taken the welfare of dumb animals under their care. There is probably harrilv a person who has not witnessed acts of cruelty to our friends of the lower order—tlie horse, the bullock, the cow, the dog. the cat. domestic poultry, or the gentle pigeon, shot at to provide sport for marksmen at frequently recurring matches. There are two forms of cruelty—the active and the passive. 11 is the former that comes the more frequently under the notice of the inspectors of societies for the prevention of cruelty and of the public, such as the thrashing and kicking of horses that are expected to pull heavy loads uphill, the riding of horses with girth galls and sore backs that cause incessant and acute pain, the unmerciful riding or driving of horses for long distances until they almost drop from exhaustion, and so on. Y\ orsc still is the vicious and deliberate maiming of horses and other animals by fiends in human form about which we occasionallv read in the newspapers—a crime that is among the abominations of the earth that a well-regulated mind utterly fails to understand. Of the less heinous forms of active cruelty there are many examples, known to most of us. in which dogs, cats and the smaller animals are the hapless victims.” •‘lt is to the credit of our race that many of the so-called sports of last century arc now tabooed in the Old Land. Cock-fighting and badger-bait-ing, for example, which were among the common amusements of English people until the middle of the last century, are now discredited practices. In these new lands of the Southern Seas cock-fighting never obtained a foot- ’ hold, and the absence in New Zealand of wild animals, such as the badger, gave no opportunity for the ruder sports in which the smaller animals were the victims. It is, then, to th r '. active cruelty practised on the larger quadrupeds that the reprobation of the public in these lands is directed, and the welfare and kind treatment of man’s noblest and most useful friend in the animal world, the horse, justly takes first place in the humane efforts of prevention of cruelty societies, the police, and men and women who have an abhorrence of cruelty to the dumb animals that so largely add to the comfort and pleasure of our lives.” “Of our delightful feathered friends, the birds, how- much could be said—'how much indeed, has been said by poets and other writers—of their wonderful beauty and charm and the pleasure they give mankind? And yet even they are not free from the cruelty that is apparently inherent in human nature. What a pitiful spectacle it is to see a splendid albatross, for example, hauled to the deck of a steamer at sea, the hapless victim of some callous passenger, who has cast overboard a tempting bait with its concealed hook that has accomplished the evil deed. Again, take the pigeon, one of the oldest favourites of mankind, of one of whose varied race it is recorded that it came to the Ark with an olive branch to show that the waters of the flood had receded.” Thousands of years before the days of King George, another King, Raineses 111. of Egypt, gloried in his donations of pigeons to the temples of Thebes, Heliopolis and Memphis—pigeons that were regarded as sacred, and not to be shot at and destroyed in furtherance of a so-called sport of the present day. How much more rational a sport are the racing matches of the homing pigeon, in Belgium, for example, where these exciting events constitute the national sport. Every village has its homing-pigeon club, and throughout the racing season thousands of birds are sent each week to France and other adjoining countries for the flight back home. The love of pigeons is universal. The common domestic pigeon is found everywhere. The birds mate in pairs and unless separated by men they will remain loyal unto death. But this homely and harmless bird is the victim of so-called sport in pigeon matches, where these innocent creatures are slaughtered in a trial of skill that can be more effectively demonstrated by the u<e of mechanical marks known as clav pigeons. The Otago Society for the Prevention -of Cruelty to Animals anr j i n the term animals is included the feathered tribe—has for years done what it can to induce the clubs which carry on this alleged Sport to adopt the use of clav pigeons, and it is to the credit' of the local Gun Club that its trials of marksmanship arc now usually carried out with the use of the mechanical device. In this connection may I tender the thanks of the society to the Hon. G. M. Thomson for his efforts to secure the passing of a BUI to make the use of live pigeons at these snatches illegal. _