WHOLESALE POISONING. Is the "Game" Worth the Candle?

Free Lance, Volume III, Issue 150, 16 May 1903, Page 8

WHOLESALE POISONING. Is the "Game" Worth the Candle?

THE New Zealand Acclimatisation Association is of opinion tiha,t the time has arrived when a license fee should be imposed for shooting native game. If no on© shoots either native or imported game for a few years, the traveller to these islands will some day find a country given over to the catei pillar and the vegetarian insect. Those ' mteiestmg" experiments to poison off the ''small bird pest" are alleged to have proved that one grain, carefully poisoned by an improved process, will k'll three birds. * * ♦ Of course, no self-respecting game bird would thank of eating grain laid for sparrows and other feathered nuisances of that sort. Imported game js more prolific here than it is at Home, and shooters are fewer. How comesi it them tihat birds are rare? Do they dine with the sparrow, oix his strychnine diet ? We believe that, in spite of orders to the contrary, that the mortality among game birds, native and imported., is due not to the "sports," but to poisoned grain. * * There is a fearful activity in New Zealand to clear the country of every harmful thing. Blackberries and children are being poisoned with great zeal. Rabbits and sheep alike fall victims to the general clearing process, and plants that used to be called "good rough fodder," are now noxious weeds. It irs reasonable to kill pests, be they rabbits, sparrows, or ragwort, but w r hen the most, valued game birds suffer equally with their vociferous cousins, the sparrows, it is certainly time to go slow. * # * Thei indiscriminate scattering of wheat, one grain of which will kill three birds, is bad for the small birds, and quite as bad for the game birds. As the game bird eat® grain (and insects), h/- is also a nuisance, is he not? That i«. why they are killing him then ? He is protected by law from the gun, and handed over to the poisoner. Not very logical, certainly. If you poison one kind of small bird nuisance with grain, you invite all other small birds, which may be useful, but which also like gram a& well to partake. There is no method of stopping them. It is easy enough, however, to prevent game birds from festing on the sparrow poison * « * The perky span ow w ill go through ,1 two ox three inch wne mesh, but a pheasant won't. Layers of strychnine should be compelled to fence their baits in. Millions of rabbits are poisoned in enclosures every year in Australia, although sheep graze in the same paddocks. A trough of poisoned water, fenced around with w r ire-netting, having holes too small for sheep entry, k used, and the rabbit slaughter is great. Some of those drought-stricken farmers wish now there had been less poison. The rabbit is a pest He is also a meal. * * * The art of bird poisoning in New Zealand is almost in its infancy, and

we sincerely hope it won't grow up. If thei pest destroyers are allowed + o scatter poison broadcast, we will have to import, frozen game from England before long. The same tale comes from all parts of New Zealand — game is scarce. Speaking comparatively, guns are scarce also. Strychnine is cheap, and goes a long way. If the Acclimatisation Society is instrumental not only m protecting native game in the ordinary way, but in saving it, together with imported game, from the pest poisoner, it will be doing a good work.