NATURE AND MAN

Waikato Times, Volume 124, Issue 20821, 3 June 1939, Page 12

NATURE AND MAN

CARE OF NATIONAL PARKS DISASTER IN AUSTRALIA (By Leo Fanning) Three months before disastrous fires destroyed many thousands of acres of Victoria's best woodlands—including some sanctuaries an Australian ! magazine. Wild Life, had an article jheaded: Are National Parks Doomed ? { “Concern is being expressed both in ■ New South Wales and in Victoria about I the fate- of the areas which have been ! reserved as sanctuaries for native ; fauna and flora.” it was stated. “Two ! factors, it seems, are at work to desj troy the effectiveness of the reser- ! vations—wholesale picnic traffic and 1 grazing; hence arises the demand, |which is steadily growing, for the declaration and rigid protection of j‘primitive areas’ similar to those which • have been reserved in progressive [lands abroad.

j “An important conference of reprej sentatives of Victorian clubs and societies. convened by the Federation jof Victorian Walking Clubs, discussed i the matter last month in Melbourne., [with a view to seeking Government The discussion is centred in j present conditions at Wilson’s Promontory in particular. This .promonitory. the southern-most point of the [Australian mainland, is particularly ! well suited to reservation as a primitive area. It is extensive: yet its form makes it possible to isolate it by the mere closing of a narrow neck of land. Furthermore, the area is—or was, according to observers who have been there recently— covered with good natural scrub and forest providing an excellent home fnr most kinds of natural fauna of the State, and including flora of many types which are well worthy of protection. “The reservation was formally made many years ago, but the granting of grazing licenses has reduced it.s effectiveness. The gravamen of the : complaints receiving attention from the | societies lies in the fact that, in the jnerlnd covered bv the grazing licenses, much of the most valuable part of the j promontory from the conservation . point of view has been devasted by ; frequent fires. As a result, much of ; the original flora has disappeared, and i with it most of the animal inhabitants j which the sanctuary was designed to j protect.” | It is suspected that deliberate scrub-burning during hot, dry weather by graziers is responsible for the recent enormous loss of forests. Similar stupidity in New Zealand has caused much loss of native bush. The Godwit—National Asset Tn reference to the “medical inspection” practised by godwits (mentioned iin a recent Nature—and Man column), j Major J, R, Kirk, a well-known bird- | lover, sent me this note: “What a na- | tional asset we are allowing to be ! blown into smoke ! The ‘medical inj spection’ featured is but one of many j attractions provided by these daring j adventurers, and wh'en the public realj ise their value. I can imagine (just as ; in the case of the gannets near Napier i and the albatross at Otago Heads) i many people journeying in this case to the north to witness the departure of [the orderly battalions. But we must ! fir st secure total protection, and I hope j the Forest and Bird Protection Society •will not relax the splendid assistance to this end which it has long been j capably affording.”

Tn Stars in the Mist, the late D. M. Ross had a good poem on the godwits’ flight. Readers will notice that the poet evidently had a mistaken impression that, godwits raised their families in New Zealand before the annual migration to Siberia.

Day after day T saw them gathering From all along the desolated tide— Fleet-winged old kuakas on pinions tried And strong, young birds on still unproven wing. Day after day—and then not anything Rut empty air and ocean vast and wide, I knowing only how my heart bad cried At their so seeming treason to the Spring.

Here had they nested; on this tawny shore • They raced between the foam lines on the sand, Then flew to Arctic summer from the South. I heard them pass; heard, too, the waves deplore The disavowed and solitary land The sea-rime raw and bitter in my mouth. Comparison of Birds’ Songs

It Is mentioned by A. H. Chisholm in Feathered Friends (Australia) that John Burroughs, an eminent American naturalist, once attempted to compare the birds of Britain with those of his own country, chiefly in regard fo their songs. In setting down his impressions he pointed out that the charm of the song of birds, like that of a nation’s popular airs and hymns, is so little a vruestion of musical excellence, and so largely a matter of association and suggestion, that it is perhaps entirely natural for every people to think their own feathered songsters the best.

On the whole. 'Burroughs was of opinion that a certain Duke of Argyll erred in thinking British birds sang better than those of America. He conceded that America had no singer of its kind to rival the skylark, and he gave high praise to the nightingale; but he thought the American hermit thrush a more melodious and more spiritual singer than the English Thrush, and he named other American species that seemed to him to be better vocalists than kindred birds in Britain. His general impression was that British birds sang more persistently, and that voices were louder and more vivacious, but that the American bird choir was a larger one, and embraced more good songsters than that of Britain.

By the way. Captain Sanderson, president of the Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand, declares that the bellbird strikes the first note in the early morning chorus —the true bellbird chime, not the notes which arc- an imitation of the tui's chant.