THE AUCKLAND ISLANDS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXX, Issue 59, 5 November 1914, Page 4

THE AUCKLAND ISLANDS.

The news that a sealing party has just returned to the Bluff from the Auckland Islands after a three months’ hunting season which resulted in a “take” of more than twelve hundred skins, gives special emphasis to the plea Sir Douglas Mawsoh recently made at a gathering of the New Zealand Club in Christchurch for protection and sanctuary for the vanishing fur-seal, says the Lyttelton Times. Sir Douglas, speaking as an explorer familiar with the Far South islands of New Zealand and as one interested in the sea-life- of those parts, regretted that the Government had withdrawn the protection which had existed for many years with regard to the seals, and he made particula r reference to the Auckland Islands, which, he said, were looked upon ’as about the last remaining refuge for these much-hunted creatures. Professor Prince, in his report on the New Zealand fisheries, also has something to about seajs, hut he seems rather to view the subject from the commercial aspect. The Dominion, he says, can still restore the fur seal industry by prohibiting all seal-killing and the handling of sealskins for a number of years, and establishing a regular patrol around the shores and islands frequented by seals, together with the regulation by licenses of all sealing operations. The measures advocated by the Professor have been tried by the New Zealand Government, to a certain extent, hut they have failed to revive the older con’li- ■ tions that made . the southern shores of the Dominion and the outlying islands'* a rich hunting ground for adventurous hunters of the fur-seal.