In Defence of the Harrier

Forest and Bird, Issue 106, 1 November 1952, Page 9

In Defence of the Harrier

Mr. W. H. J. Poole writes: —

“In your last issue* you speak of the Harrier hawk as a destroyer of game and pests. lam past the 70 year mark, took out my first licence in' my 12th year and each year after until I was 26, then out of N.Z. for 3 years and licences again ad lib. and in a lifetime of shooting and hunting have never seen Kahu kill a pheasant or quail or duck unless it was already hit or sick.

“Here is what the late Edgar Waite said (no need to tell you who he was) on one occasion when he, the late Edgar Stead, and I were talking in the Christchurch Museum just after they had come back from interviewing the Okarito whale. Quotha: ‘When you New Zealanders have killed the last Harrier you will have spelt the doom of your ground game. Try to imagine a Harrier 300 or 3000 feet up in the air with eyesight such as no human can imagine. He sees a movement, a turmoil in the bracken. Now you MUST know that a Harrier cannot kill unless his wings are free. It is his business to investigate the trouble so down he comes and beats and works' way into the bracken; you go over and flush him from a freshly killed hen pheasant or quail. I say hen because they crouch. You at once say, “I saw that hawk kill a hen pheasant”, which is exactly what you did NOT do. If you examined the bird you would find its neck punctured or its head crushed showing it had been killed by a stoat, ferret or cat or rat’. “I have had dozens of shooting men on the look-out for many years and the conclusion of all is—a Harrier does NOT kill game birds. His prey is rats, stoats (I personally have on four occasions seen stoats killed by Harriers), young rabbits and small birds. “Get a team of really observant persons to watch. My son and I counted 28 Harriers over a patch of newly burned fern on which 12 pheasants were feeding. That would be 20 years ago. Now no Harriers, no pheasants.” * This was received when the last issue was in print and before it was published. Ed.