ACCLIMATISATION SOCIETIES CONFERENCE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8489, 18 July 1907, Page 5

ACCLIMATISATION SOCIETIES CONFERENCE.

By Telegraph—Press Association,

WELLINGTON, July 17. At the A-.':ii:natisation Societies' Conference a proposal was presented from the Buller Society demanding that a license fee of £25 for the season, and a tax of fivepence per gallon, should be levied on collectors of whitebait. The conference affirmed that there should be some restriction on the taking of whitebait for canning and freezing. Mr Walker pointed out that stoats and weasels had been largely responsible for the extermination of pukeko, kaka, and many smaller birds, and the conference ought to urge the Government to declare them vermin throughout the land. Mr Pollard, the Marlborough delegats, protested as a representative from a rabbit infested district. He recalled that many settlers there had been ruined by the rabbits; and others had just climbed through their difficulties principally by the instrumentality of stoats and weasels, which had been introduced at enormous expense. Mr Walker's suggestion was not acted on. It was decided that it should be left to each separate society to fix the date most suitabe for the opening and closing of the deerstalking season. The matter of limiting the number of trout caught by an angler in one day was withdrawn, being one for a conference between the different districts. The following resolution was carried:—"That this conference request the Government to make a systematic attempt to acclimatise Atlantic salmon in the Waiau watershed, Southland." It was also decided to ask the Government to continue the importation of Pacific salmon. Mr Payton said that the severance of a large portion of the Auckland acclimatisation district to be administered by the Tourist Department had been "sprung" on the Society very hurriedly, and it did not quite know how to proceed. He moved a resolution expressing approval of the Auckland Society's demand for compensation.