CHATHAM ISLANDS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 594, 27 July 1933, Page 7

CHATHAM ISLANDS

PICTURESQUE LAGOON SWAtRMING WITH SWANS Sidelights into the character of the Chatham Islands and the life there were were given in a lecture by Mr. A. W. B. Powell, conchologist at the Auckland museum, reports the Star. One of the most inteijesting features on the islands, he said was the great lagoon on the largest island, Chatham Island itself. It had an area of 46,000 acres, and had been formed through sandbars linldng up whai otherwise would have been three islands. The water was not deep and was brackish. The surface was covered with vast floeks of the Australian black swan, which had increased in numbers to such an extent that they had been

the cause of the extermination of the native waterfowl. There had not been enough food for both birds. Indeed, added Mr. Powell, so rapid was the increase of the swans that there was not even enough food for themselves and numbers starved to death each year. The settlers organised drives to reduce the numbers, but such measures were not very satisfactory. If the surface of the lagoon was swarming with swans the lagoon itself abounded with flounder, which were so numerous that they lined the