The Shooting Season.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 85, 14 April 1904, Page 4

The Shooting Season.

A correspondent of the Opunake 1 Times writes As the time approaches when the shooting season h- i should begin it behoves sportsmen in i ,tha Egroont county to form" an acclimatisation society of their own, > and provide game to shoot. Up to now all the Hawera society has done Was ririefly to rake in the money and let it accumulate so that they could i. , construct fan«y fish-pands for llic : ' good of their own town, and, as a secondary consideration, spent about v.; 1-0 per cent, in what should be their legitimate function, stocking the country with fish and game. All • their revenue was primarily derived from the licenses to shoot pheasants ; .which they certainly did not introduce, and having managed their bus- : • iness so 'fishily' that the pheasant is practically extinct, it is time they were relieved of their duties outside their own county. Of what the Ta--ranakl Society has done at this end beyond receiving the money for licen- ' ties no ordinary man could toil, but 'masterly inactivity' seems their Idea of doing their duty. Now the Egmont, county is well adapted for : game, as there is a fair amount of 1 ' shelter, which is "Hie main thing, as . hawks get a(»out half the brood of ! young birds. Therefore get rid of V hawks at any price, when game would be plentiful. The 'pot' hunting members of the 1 above societies offer <sd per bead for hawks, and pay \ even that sum with a very'bad grace and yet offer 2s per head for shags, when they might as well try to clear ithe seagulls as to exterminate the shag, whereas hawks could easily be reduced, or even exterminated."