COLLECTORS’ PERMITS.

Forest and Bird, Issue 29, 1 April 1933, Page 15

COLLECTORS’ PERMITS.

It cannot be said that the present system whereby permits are issued by the Minister is at all satisfactory to those of the public who desire that as few as possible of our native birds should be killed. These permits are issued officially by the Minister of Internal Affairs, but Ministers come and go and must in such cases as this be guided solely by their subordinates. Acclimatisation Societies are advised when a permit is issued in their particular district, but rangers are not notified and no check whatever appears to be ever made as to whether a collector exceeds his permit or not. Permits are usually given for three months for certain specified birds, and generally for alleged scientific reasons. Considering that thousands of bird skins have been collected in the past, how much knowledge has been gained thereby? ; if so little in the past how much is likely to be gained by these destructive means in the future? The Native Bird Protection Society has suggested various ways of overcoming the present secret system such as that they should be furnished

with a copy of all permits issued, that a ranger should accompany the collector at the latter’s expense, that collectors’ permits should be gazetted, but all of these requests have been refused, and the most the Department will do is summed up in the words — “It is considered that to gazette the . issue of permits might do more harm than good. I might add that the necessity for restricting the taking of birds, particularly the rarer varieties, is fully recognised, but apart from giving an assurance that authorities will be issued very sparingly and only in such cases as I am satisfied the circumstances warrant, I regret that I am unable to comply with your request.” “Sparingly” is, however, an ambiguous term and may mean anything, especially when one noted private collector stated that the trouble with him had never been to get permits but to get the birds his permit authorised him to take. Further, a permit was recently issued to the Directors of a Zoological Park to take certain water fowl during the nesting season, including some rapidly decreasing species. This would mean that the parent birds were in captivity while the young were left to starve. Surely it would have occurred to anyone who had the welfare of the birds at heart to defer operations to a later period when the birds had finished nesting? There are legal as well as illegal collectors and besides this the requirements of five museums have to be met, and their toll has undoubtedly been a very heavy one as the skins of our rare birds have been extensively used to barter with foreign institutions of a similar nature. Museums are under the same Department as that which grants permits to private collectors.