GREAT DEER HERDS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4533, 28 February 1923, Page 3

GREAT DEER HERDS.

DO ENORMOUS DAMAGE. AN INTERESTING REPORT. Deer to the estimated number of 300,000 arc doing so much damage in New Zealand that the Forestry Officer recently commissioned to report on their depredations recommends that on settlement land and in the neigh-, bourhood of settlement land the protection of the animals should he wholly removed, and the sale of carcases permitted,, while in more remote districts men should be employed to diminish the herds; by shootnig or poisoning. According to the report the huge herds of to-day came from 111 head imported at various .times between 1861 and 1909. They afford sport annually to “.0005 per cent, of the population” —a figure based upon the revenue from licenses issued for the shooting pf deer. HERDS DEGENERATING. The herds are degenerating through want of culling, through iri-breeding, through the absence of natural enemies, and through lack of adequate food for the development of horn. They increase probably .at the rate of 25 per cent, per annum; and the cost to the country of the damage they do to mountain pastures, to crops, to fences, and to stock is estimated at £lBO,OOO per annum. On the other hand, the gain to the country from its deer herds is estimated at a mere £7OOO. The number of visitors attracted to New Zealand by the sport of deershooting is not nearly so large as many would believe. To one of thb great hunting grounds only four overseas visitors have gone in many years. DISPLACING SHEEP. Lust year the owner of a grazing run abandoned 23,000' acres at Lake Rotoiti, and explained to the Commissioner of Crown' Lands that the deer had left no food for the stock. The author of the report calculates’ that deer have displaced the equivalent of 450,000 sheep from the pastures of the Dominion. Some of the passages on the habits of deer read rather quaintly. For instance : “Great distances are travelled through the night in searcn of food, and the animal, being mischievous by nature, often destroys far more than it eats, it is very fond of gambolling about also, and this habit causes some trouble among ewes and lambs.” GRAIN CROPS ATTACKED. "Giain crops are grazed on, trampled down, and even when in the stook are not immune, the sheaves being tossed in all directions and destroyed. Turnip crops are grazed often before they are ready, the bulbs broken, and in some cases rows are pulled up in a spirit of mischief and left to rot. LAMBS SUFFER. “Farmers stated that their loss among ewes and lambs through deer playing about among' them at lambing time was considerable. One estimated his reduction in lambs at thirty percent. They are very emphatic on the question, stating that from their point of view deer are comparable to the rabbit, with the added disadvantages that they are impossible or prohibitive to fence against; they travel great distances to carry out their depredations, which, occurring at night-time, are impossible to guard aaginst. This condition pf affairs is general.”