A QUESTION OF FACT

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 75, 30 March 1933, Page 10

A QUESTION OF FACT

. ■ •» . In Saturday's edition we published an analytical article setting out some points of the wild life problem, and stating issues (not deciding them). This has already led to one or two interesting results; for instance, Mr. G. B. Wilson in a signed letter raises an old question that goes to the very heart of the deer problem in the Wellington Acclimatisation Society's district. That question, which has been raised before in this paper but never answered, may be summed up as follows: "Has deer-damage in the Tararuas reached-a point of intensity at which the foundation is already laid for lhe same loss of undergrowth (and eventually of forest) that has become a byword in the Haurangi forest?" On the one hand there is the backbone range L (Tararuas)j with immense

water/flow importance, and an isolated range (including Haurangi) of considerable walerflow importance. Is the condition oi' the former (though less visible) well on the | way to become the condition of the latter? Mr. Wilson also says that deer-depredations in the Wellington district have been terribly underestimated. This is a challenge to the Wellington' Acclimatisation Society on questions of fact. If the Society can prove Mr. Wilson wrong, many lovers of,wild life (including no doubt Mr. Wilson himself) will be very pleased.