DESTRUCTIVE BIRDS

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 108, 28 July 1927, Page 10

DESTRUCTIVE BIRDS

PROTECTION FOR NATIVES ONLY SIR THOMAS MACKENZIE’S BILL (THE SUN’S Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, Wednesday. In the Legislative Council tins afternoon the committee stage of Sir Thomas Mackenzie's Animals Protection and Game Amendment Bill was taken. The Hon. Sir Ft. Heaton Rhodes said that it was a move in the right direction effectively to protect native birds,

but he thought the effect of the bill was to protect one or two others which were not native birds, such as the starling and the brown owl, which he thought should be excluded from the operation of the bill. The starling was a great nuisance to orchardists as it was a great fruit eater. The Hon. L. M. Isitt said the starling was becoming more and more a nuisance every season. Apart from stone fruits great damage was done to pears. The Hon. Sir Thomas Mackenzie said he proposed to meet the difficulty regarding the starling and the owl by amending the clause to exclude from the operation of the Act any imported birds. . The Hon. R. Scott said the blackbird was a great destroyer of fruit and was as bad as the starling. An amendment was passed to meet the objection of Sir R. Heaton Rhodes. The bill was reported as amended.