DEFENCE OF KEA

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 90, 13 October 1934, Page 15

DEFENCE OF KEA

ENGLISH WRITER'S VIEWS

SPECULATION AS TO EXTINCTION

"The cry of the kea for help" is the title given to a long article published in the October issue of "Forest and Bird," the bulletin issued by tho Now Zealand Native Bird Protection Society. The bulletin states that the users of sheep runs, held on peppercorn rentals in alpine country in the South Island, are again clamouring for the extinction of the kea, at tho taxpayers' expense.

The article is, in tho main, a reprint of a special story written by Mr. Sidney Porter, a well-known authority on birds, for the "Avicultural Magazine," published by tho English Avicultural Society. Mr. Porter describes the kea as the most fascinating and peculiar bird he has ever come across. He wrote:

"That the kea will become extinct is a matter of much speculation on the part of naturalists. Some say that owing to the inaccessibility of its haunts it will never be shot out, but there are few spots now in the South Island of New Zealand where the sheep farmers have not penetrated, and the kea is to the average sheep farmer what a red rag is to a bull. If it does' become extinct, perhaps they will tell us that, after all, it might have been a mistake about its carnivorous habits, but it will be too late then! "IDEA FOSTERED." "Everything is being done to foster the idea about the kea's feeding upon mutton. Children in schools aro taught about a horrible rapacious bird which feeds on the kidneys of living sheep. The association of this bird and sheep soelns inseparable. Every time we see a kea pictured in a scientific book, in tho background there are usually two of these 'monsters' in tho very "act of tearing out the kidneys of .a sheep. To my mind it would be just as incongruous to represent human beings every time they were pictured, to be feasting on a mutton chop, and I'm sure that humans are far more entitled to be shown eating sheep than these parrots. "In fact, I still have to bo convinced that this bird kills sheep at all. No ono I ever met has ever seen a kca kill a sheep, except one man whom j I met, who said that he had seen 200 killed in a night! I hardly liked to say that he was lying; so I merely said that at that rate they might easily dispense with tho services of the slaughterman. But with tho tales of sheep killing it is always the old story of someone who knew someone olso whoso friend had seen them. CHARGE AGAINST SHEPHERDS. "When tho subsidy of 5s a head was being paid many shepherds supplemented their incomes by shooting tho birds. They would take up small pea rifles and at a distance of a few feet would kill half a dozen keas. The heads would be cut off and sent to the nearest depot, and tho killer would be awarded 5s a head. This meant quite a nice little income. It is little wonder that these men, and also farmers, wore anxious to keep alive the rumour about the keas' sheep-eating propensities."

Describing the kca as an asset for Mount Cook, Mr. Porter said that around the Ball Hut by the Tasman Glacier, at Mount Cook (12,349 feet) the keas are fairly numerous; there must be from 00 to 60 in the locality. Fortunately they are protected by the authorities at the Hermitage. But there are even people, including certain members of Parliament, who are using every effort to'get them destroyed, and yet, "never in the history of the Hermitage has a kea been known to touch a sheep, although there are hundreds around there, and keas and sheep live on, quite friendly terms. . . .

"The farmers in those regions, being true Britishers, had to kill something and in those days before the introduction of the chamois and the thar, the only living things were the sheep and the keas, so the kea had to pay the price. As he was not on the list of conventional sporting birds, an excuse had to be made for massacring the good-natured and inquisitive bird, so they said that he ate sheep. To make this worse they said he ate the kidneys from living sheep. These stories are very much on a par with the stories' told in the English countryside of nightjars sucking goats' milk, of eagles carrying off children, and of cuckoos changing into hawks on the approach of winter."