THE ROOK PEST.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, 21 November 1927, Page 9

THE ROOK PEST.

(To the Editor)

Sir, —When Mr. Gilbert McKay got an Act put through Parliament declaring rooks to be noxious birds the Hawke’s Bay County Council accepted the responsibility of administering the law, and eradicating the pest, It soon became apparent, however, that the Council had no,* intention of doing anything of the kind, and it became common com■ment that they had accepted the authority, not for the purpose of eradicating the rook, but to prevent them from being destroyed.

It is well known that rooks occasionally eat a few grass grubs. It is well known also, that for every pennyworth of good done, they do a pound’s worth of damage in other ways. It is further well known that none of the Councillors are farmers in a small way, but that an, or nearly all of them, are pastoralists, holding large tracts of grazing land. Hie comment is often made that the Councillors are loncerr-ed, not about the small strugglers, and the pounds’ worth of damage done to them, but of the pennyworth of good done on their own stations.

All credit is due to the Farmers’ Union, lor the stand it has recently taken in the matter. The remarks made by Mr. T. Crosse, at the last meeting of the Council, show clearly that so long as he has influence to prevent it, no rooks shall be interfered- with, but they shall be allowed to continue their work of destruction.

It is to be hoped that the Farmers’ Union wwill continue the good work it i s doing. It seems to me that their next stop should be to apply to the Government to have the authority removed and given to some other organisation that would deal honestly in the matter, it also seems to me that no better authority could be found than the Farmers’ Union themselves. As to the question of damage, 1 once -knew of 40 acres of pumpkins totally destroyed by rooks. The area was replanted in pumpkins, and the whole 40 acres again, destroyed. The third attempt to get a crop was by sowing barley, but judging by the thousands of rooks I saw at work they must have got a far better return from the land than the farmer did. Can Mr. Crosse quote, distances of benefit, that will outweigh this once instance of damage.—l am, yours, etc., 0. R. BOSTOCK. Fernhill, Nov. 18th. 1927.