ACCLIMATISATION BLUNDERS.
It seems (argues the Daily Chronicle), that would-be accliraatisers will never learn wisdom. The A.nericans permitted the millions of buffalo which, before tlio building of the railways, covered the prairies, to be slaughtered by skin-hunters until at present, with the exception of a few in parks or upon farms, or which have taken refuge among the inaccessible valleys, not one exists. Even their bones are being collected lor the sugar refiner's purposes. This massacre, though protested against at the time, was not altogether a piece of mere stupidity permitted by an apathetic Government. It was really intended, since so long as the Indians had an ample supply of wild food they could never bo tamed. They took to reservations and ' made treaty' when starving. But the arrival of the migrating herds of buffalo rendered them masterless men. Now it is proposed to replace the vanished bison by the Australian kangaroo on the ground that it affords good sport and saleable hides, a3 if tho buffalo did not afford both in much greater perfection plus a plentiful supply of the best of beef. Whethei the absurd scheme will ever be cirried into effect may be doubted. In the first place, the prairies are fast being apportioned off among private owners - a fact which would in any case have proved the doom of the buffalo. Fencing is also being rapidly adopted, so that wild animals, especially those which would prove voracious of the scanty pastures, conld not long be tolerated in any great mi nber by the ranchers. In many parts of Australia the kangaroo family are so mischiavous that rewards are offered for their scalps, and not a few sheep farmers find them not much less onerous to endure than the rabbit, that most unfortunate of all acclimatisation successes. However, we question whether the kangaroo would prosper in any part of North America ; it is essentially an animal of a warm country —no area of which has a climate anything like so severe as that of the prairie region in winter, though tho summer heat of these gn-flss lands is suitable enough for Australian animals, Tho buffalo has already been naturalised in one or two of our parks, and in one pleasaunce--in Lincolnshire, we believe—there have long been one or two kaneraroos at home. But they require shelter in winter, and do not thrive well.
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Waikato Times, Volume XXXIX, Issue 3201, 31 December 1892, Page 6 (Supplement)
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396ACCLIMATISATION BLUNDERS. Waikato Times, Volume XXXIX, Issue 3201, 31 December 1892, Page 6 (Supplement)
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