NATIVE BIRDS OR OPOSSUMS?

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 99, 21 January 1943, Page 4

NATIVE BIRDS OR OPOSSUMS?

A Choice In The Bush

Out in the bush and forest of the Tararuas native birds which have for time beyond recall filled the air with melody and colour and, with such as the friendly, inquisitive "rifleman,” amused, those ot the race of meu whose journeys took them to these parts, appear not so numerous as some years ago. They, too, are having their battle for unrestricted survival. Expert observers consider the decline due to the fact that many of the berry-bearing trees and shrubs from which the birds get their food are being eaten by exotic animals introduced, in the. ease ot the opossum, to get skin royalties and, with the deer, provide sport. The deer menace, m which the birds seem "small fry” because of the bigger problems involved, has been described in another article by a representative of "The Dominion” just returned from four days in the Tararuas. The tui. bellbird, parakeets, kaka, tomtit, "rifleman,” fantail, long-tailed cuckoo and native pigeon are the birds of this area, and still sufficient to enchant with song and colour. The bellbirds, on occasions, were heard in royal chorus, a tew starting and the others joining in at intervals to give full and glorious strength to this choir of nature. . The war even touches native bird tile, as does the -plain economies of the skin market. -Opossums eat the berries on which the birds largely depend, trappers have in common with other followers ot the outdoors taken their places in the forces and. as is true of nil periods, the numbers engaged in trapping is affected by tile price for skins. If more profitable work is obtainable, opossum trapping activity declines. Opossum trappers have tn turn contributed a portion to forest and bush destruction. Trappers often, make scars on voting trees to mark tracks and trap lines. The result, as was observed, where the sear or blaze penetrated the bark, has been to kill the portion ot wood underneath, hastening the death of the. whole tree. The bark is the trees natural protection against boring insects. When part of the wood dies in go the insects. A small blaze on an old tree is not important, but to a young tree it. may mean death before it reaches even middle life- __________