BIRD RESEARCH WORK
In those countries where modern conservation methods are in vogue, a species of bird is not condemned as harmful because it kills a game bird or a fowl or a fish. The complexity of wild
life is very great. The question to be ascertained is, does a particular species of any sort, be it hawk or shag, sparrow or quail, do more harm than good or more good than harm. To ascertain this with some degree of accuracy a given number of the species on trial would be shot each month in the year and the crop contents microscopically.analysed and tabulated. A bird may kill a fowl and likewise destroy a few hundred rats which would have destroyed a considerable number of eggs and chickens, or another bird may eat some of one’s grass seed and destroy an infinitely larger number of gorse and blackberry seeds, or hosts of harmful insects at other times. A sea bird may be destroying the very fish which feeds on the spawn or fry of our most desirable fish. To either acclimatise or condemn any bird is a very serious matter with reference to the community’s prosperity and should not be done in a haphazard manner.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/FORBI19250301.2.17
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Forest and Bird, Issue 8, 1 March 1925, Page 14
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205BIRD RESEARCH WORK Forest and Bird, Issue 8, 1 March 1925, Page 14
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