PENGUIN OIL INDUSTRY.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 October 1919, Page 5

PENGUIN OIL INDUSTRY.

HUNTERS ON MAOQUARRIES. # 8000 BIRDS KILLED DAILY. ' The methods employed by a party of men on the Macquarrie Islands In catching penguins, which they boil down for oil, were described in Clirifitehurch the other day by Mr. E. J. Havnes, taxidermist at Canteruury Museum, who recently visited the Islands. The birds, he said, canie ashore ...on a flat, pebbly beach and entered a natural cul-de-sac formed by a saddle. Usually two pen-guin-hunters stood by, one on eaeh side of the cul-de-sac, an'd knocked the penguins 011 the head. Five experienced men averaged a total of about 8000 birds a day. The bodies were carried to the digestora, where the oil was obtained. In refuting a statement that the birds were driven alive into the digester, Mr. ITaynes said it is utterly impossible to do this, but if it were it would \>e a ! more troublesome and lengthy process, j It is mainly ti.o royal penguin that is taken for oil, but the rock-hopper am 1 ' the tufted penguin, known to New £cf . landers as tho Victoria, are also kille Mr. Havnes believes th.it it would W impossible to exterminate the royal penguin, but the rookeries of the other two species might be seriously reduced. The king penguin occupies several islands in the Southern Ocean, 'ml; the Macquarries are the only islands in the New Zealand zoological area on which it breeds, and there it has large rookeries. If the hunters had carried on their work at those rookeries in T.usitania Bay the king penguins would have been exterminated as far" as the Maen Harries are concerned, hut Mr. Hatch, the lessee of the islands, insists that that species should not be interfered with. Mr Havnes strongly supports tho proposal to declare the islands a, national reserve after Mr. Hatch's lease expires and to have sV animal life