NATURE AND MAN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 229, 30 September 1935, Page 6

NATURE AND MAN

DEADLY DEER AN OFFICIAL CONVICTION • Edited by Leo Fanning.) I'le official papers that will be tabled in Parliament this session would provide plenty of freight lor several “ wheelbarrow dvrbic.-." Muck of the matter will go at once into cold store; some of it will be- discussed for a day or two; very little of it will make any enduring impress cn the public mind. However, one report, me most important of ail, in the opinion of many thoughtful New Zealander.!—the revelation of deer damage by the Department of Internal Affairs—deserves a better fate taan. a casual reading and a quick lorgetting. This report thoroughly supports the case of the Forest and Bad Protection Society against the deer nuisance. Indeed it is more than au ordinary departmental report; ii is clearly a mandate to this Government, as a beard of directors for the general public, that it must never again give any heed to- short-sighted ueienders of deer, who cheerfully ignore any evidence that goes against their fad of sport, and must persevere vigorously witn a campaign of extermination of the destructive animals. Here is a field for the beneficial use of a substantial portion of the money —nearly £5 million—taken from the public for “ unemployment relief.” Could there be a better purpose than the saving of vitally necessary forests on which farming and hydroelectric enterprise are dependent? Here is a section of the report on which the Government authorities can take effective action immediately:— “The success which has attended the department’s operations since their commencement is largely due to the fact that they are conducted to a carefully thought-out general tactical plan which. provides for the complete coordination of the activities of every unit in the organisation. An important feature ot these tactics is so to conduct the work that disturbed deer will move into localities which give temporary sanctuary, but where tney can be snot in large numbers wnen the proper time arrives; but all these systematic methods are nullified by uncontrolled parties which scatter the deer. “It has been contended that as spoilsmen snout some deer their object is identical with that of the department, and they must therefore be helpful in bringing about a diminution of the herds. Experience has shown, however, that the numbers they kill are entirely negligible, while the scattering of deer and driving them back on to the country which has already been worked and left causes serious reduction of the numbers finally killed.” Tragedies of the West Coast. Who is responsible for the chucking of stupid vandalism in the forest belt on the west coast of the South Island? Complaints of havoc continue, hut it dot’s not seem to be the concern of anybody in authority to take action on behalf of the public to prevent the mischief. What is the position t-.' the state Forest service in this field/ Is it not expected to be a protector i It has been accused of condoning unjustifiable raiding of tne national asset. Here is the trustworthy statement of aa active member of ti e Forest and Liid Protection Society who has b'.ca an accurate observer of doing and undoings in the West (oust: ‘‘There is mm i unnecessary dc.-t.m-lion of liu.-n here on the roast. By roadside, lakeside, ami ri\er it • i dis appearing I efuie c-.:r eyes. while throughout th.- cuum:> ide are monuments of ‘ failure io farm* in the shape of disgruntled 'ountrv comprising blackberry, bracken, gorse, swarm and rush. These stretches of country will never raise anything more than about o-nc goat to the square mile, i is false and foolish economy to ha'c anything 014 it but its natural crop o! bush. Time and again we see places where the second growth of rimu. si I 'er pine, and while pine has come in and if left would be ‘a thing of beauty and a jr-y for ever.’ But no: they must tear it down and introduce the firestick under the mistaken notion that it can be turned into a pasture land. It never will. The Forest h Department is to blame. and .so

is the Lands Department. With a view to showing a profit they will sell this land to any misguided individual who cherishes the illusion that he will cue day make a farm of it. Not he; nor his children, nor his childicn’s children.

Hie “Little People." If it were possible to have a Parliament ot “lower creatures” the first order of the day at the opening of the session, would be a motic-n of no-con fideuce in man, “the Lord of the fowl and the brute.’’ Man has had a long innings on the face of the earth, but what a mess he is making of his socalled “civilisation.” However there is still hope of a better time coming, some year, somehow. Meanwhile, it is weil to gather some inspiration from another pleasant passage of Archibald Rutledge in “American Forests.” “While it must be admitted,” he writes, “that there are harsh, and raucous voices in the ilatural world, 1 nevertheless by far the greater number j are melodious, and not louder than they need be. To me, there are two sounds in nature tender than all others; and neither one is the voice of a songbird; one is the treble piping of a little wild turkey that has lost its mother; and one is the elfin bleating of a baby lawn. He who has heard these voices will come to au appreciation of the spiritual kinship of all life; and his heart will be touched by the cosmic pathos of a child’c distress on being separate d from its mother. Une day late in March 1 was on Bull’s Island, one uf that romantic semi-tropical group which lies off the South Atlantic seaboard. The spring of that idyllic isle was well advanced; mockingbirds and thrushes were nesting; th-e yellow jasmine was tossing into the fragrant air her delicate saffion fountains of flowers. In the sheltered ponds that sleep surrounded I by the dense woods of the island a ; great concourse of wild ducks ha.) 1 gathered, preparatory Io their epi" ; northward migration. On those placid I ; waters, in their full nuptual plumage, j they drifted and idled in serene tin- I • premeditated beauty and grace. And | I they were talking; not along the mem 1 bers of one species with their iminedi--1 ate fellows, but mallards, black ducks, i leal, .‘anvas'oa'-I.s, widgeons- -nil in a quiet language were Conversing, inter • mingling in iiidcscent loveliness—now silent, now communing in the language : "f wild elegance. ! “In this primeval speech there is a I 1 t'dal absence of the. ribald, the mean. i the sarcastic. the cynienl. the scanda , • oils'. 18-re thousand< of these beaut 1 ’ nil birds had assembled: and the;: ■ ( behaviour was a kind of sac-red wm - I Sliip. I heard n<- pi ofanit v. There ■nn afternoon tea gossip. no bridge- • :-i• s' andal. Th'-re wa- a gentle con. 1 i.iunion of spirit as well as of voices. j - a ha fl. ony of hea it." I Well, friends, thine aon ha.ve the ;'-i"gan for a b'-tter humanity—“a jharmonv of hoaits.’’ That was the 1 y lp at bi.'i- of Christ’s teaching on earth to inen goodwill." ■Tn that sense Ai'iibald Rutled.gt- found fh.,t t ie bir.l- were better ('liristians lb a:i wen were.