UNSPORTING SPORTSMEN

Evening Star, Issue 22459, 2 October 1936, Page 14

UNSPORTING SPORTSMEN

BIRD SLAUGHTER IN RESERVES [Pek United Peess Association.] WELLINGTON, October 1. “ Parliament has passed a law to protect native and game birds, and the police,' assisted by the Department of Internal Affairs and acclimatisation societies, will see that the law is fully administered,” stated the Minister of Internal Affairs (the Hon. W. E. Parry) to-day. “The person who kills game and other birds in the waters of public reserves which are sanctuaries merits the utmost penalty the law provides.” Mr Parry was referring to several complaints that had officially reached him lately of birds—wild 'duck and pukeko mostly—which had been killed in permanent patches of water in certain of the boroughs and on the little rivers, that ran through them where they had taken up their abode. “ The person who shoots or takes a bird from any of these little streams of a town where people, particularly children, like to see the water birds with their young, is no sport or lover of Nature,” the Minister said. “It is because of the depredations of peisons of that type, lacking in all public spirit and feeling, that laws have to be passed to punish them.” Only that morning a resident of Hutt Valley brought him a complaint that some unsportsmanlike person had wantonly killed some native ducks and pukeko in the Waiwhetu River, the delight of the people of the district, while they were rearing their young. Quite apart from the breaking of the law, it was inconceivable that a person should be so wanting in sportsmanship, civic pride, and thought.