FORESTS AND WILD LIFE.

Forest and Bird, Issue 20, 1 March 1930, Page 14

FORESTS AND WILD LIFE.

(By Captain E. V. Sanderson.)

“It is axiomatic that wild life, including mammals, birds, and fish, depends primarily on the maintenance of the forests,” says the December bulletin of the American Game Protective Association. Fish, because forests are the regulator of rivers and streams. In New Zealand it is mainly the floor covering, so peculiar to our forests, which is the main water controller. If this is damaged or destroyed then rivers and streams rush impetuously down in times of heavy rain scouring out fish-cover and fish-food, while in times of drought these water channels become more or

less a series of pools. Irout fishermen should therefore be active m forest preservation, lest their recreation be lost. The first essential in the conservation of game birds and our native birds is that their habitat should be in natural condition. Thus the iorests are the homes and food supplies of our forest inhabiting native birds, and no native forests means no native forest inhabiting birds. Game birds, too, must have cover; indeed, the p leasant m this country, or what few remain, are becoming more and more prone to live and roost in the fringe and patches of oiests, while quail always find the forest a safe sanctuary. buieh, then, it is in the interests of all, except some few of he deer stalkers, who think more of their stalking than their country s welfare or anybody else’s interests, that plant eating animals should be_ exterminated from our forests which the ugliest authorities in the world say, owing to their peculiar past existence, are totally unequipped to withstand the ravages of plant-eating animals. No forests means no fish, no game birds, no native birds and no future prosperity for New Zealand. We cannot afford to replant our forests if they are destroyed and u e cannot replace them with a forest so well designed for water conservation, the prevention of erosion and those beneficial, nay necessary conditions, brought about by forests to our national well being, nay, our very existence as a people. Every good citizen should, and must, insist on the elimination of plant-eating animals m our forests lest we strike that rock which has time and time again wrecked former peoples—forest depletion.