CONSERVING DUCKS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 April 1940, Page 3

CONSERVING DUCKS

SHOOTERS FORM ASSOCIATION. LEAD IN SOUTHLAND. To conserve the wild duck population of Southland and to improve and control the facilities for shooting, a representative meeting of about GO Southland sportsmen formed themselves into a New Zealand Duck Shooters' Association. Southland branch. Representation of duck shooters on the Southland Acclimatisation Society was discussed, and it was decided to support the candidature of four shooters for the seven vacancies shortly to occur on the council of the society.

The meeting represented no spirit of antagonism to the Southland Acclimatisation Society or the anglers' fraternity, slated the chairman. Mr P. Hennessey. The furthering of the interests of duck shooters was the sole purpose of the proposed formation of an association. which would direct the activities and opinions of delegates to the Acclimatisation Society and make recommendations which had the backing of the majority of duck-shooters. At present, members of the society who were duck shooters expressed their individual opinions, which consequently lacked effective weight. The many questions worthy of discussion included those of closed seasons and scarcity of game. Southland was fortunate in its many swamps which harboured grey ducks, said Dr G. B. Orbell, president of the New Zealand Deerstalkers' Association. The Minister of Internal Affairs (the Hoi),, W. E. Parry) was in favour of the formation of such an organisation. In the past there had been only haphazard control of the grey ducks, which, unless fostered, would become extinct, or nearly so.

That the meeting should take the initiative in forming a New Zealand organisation rather than a provincial one. was suggested by Mr A. H. Hamilton. The suggestion to form a New Zealand organisation was a valuable one. said Dr Orbell. There were in northern provinces, he said, shooters who would probably welcome such a slop.