SHOOTING OF GAME.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9704, 29 January 1910, Page 5

SHOOTING OF GAME.

By Telegraph— Press' Association. WELLINGTON, January 28. " Every third year, commencing from 1910, the law provides tliat there shall be a close season for shooting, but under certain conditions with regard to applications of Acclimatisation Societies, the Minister of Internal Affairs may grant permission to shoot all classes of

imported or native game, or any particular class that may be applied for. Tjis season happens to te a close one, but various Acclimatisation Societies consider that it should not be so far as imported game is concerned. With the object of having the embargo removed representatives of the Wellington, Marlborough and Nelson Societies waited upon the Hon. D. Buddo to-day, with a request that the season for native game should be declared »an open one.

The Minister emphasised that it was not his business to find ways and means of cutting a hole in the Act to allow everybody to shoot indiscriminately. He had received a number of appplications from Acclimatisation Societies—considerablyjmore from the North than the South Island-asking for an open season. In some cases ;hey wanted an open se.a son for all ?ame. in others, for imported game >nly, while some even expected cer;ain classes of imported game. His >wn impression for the moment was ;hat there should certainly be an open jeason for hares throughout the vhole of the Dominion, but it was juite competent for societies to project hares if they saw fit. Hares, jheasants, and quail were the three jrincipal classes of imported game, and from the evidence he had before lira pheasants were very scarce. In :ases where quail were exceptionaly plentiful one had to be very ireful that the interests of settlers vould not suffer, but it was absoutely necessary in some districts to preserve all the game there was. Unler ordinary circumstances one was nclined to give full effect to'] the aw, but it must not be allowed to :ome between the protection of ;ame and the interests of settlers. 3e would consider their repesenta;ions, and make public his decision it least six weeks before the openne of the shooting season.