TOO MUCH KILLING?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 422, 25 July 1947, Page 18

TOO MUCH KILLING?

Sir-H. Wendeil Endicott’s moving and almost convincing article in The Listener is very interesting, but does he realise how small our country is? That we have no wide prairies over which four-footed creatures can roam? Being a visitor only, he can’t know that the depredations of the four-footers are doing as much to denude. our country of its forests as those of the two-footers. Has he seen ‘the floods with their damage to life and property, which seem to be getting more frequent and widespread and are caused chiefly by the stripping of the hills of all trees? At present it seems impossible to convince man of his stupidity; his insane frenzy seems to be the cutting or burning of all timber within sight; but there is always the hope that, some day, New Zealanders may come to their senses and begin to plant instead of destroy. One can’t hope the same for the fourfooters. Were they allowed to increase at the alarming rate they have been (continued on next page) ~

(continued from previous page) doing, it would be a losing battle for man, however diligently he planted. Mr. Endicott went on a very busy rabbit hunt, helping to reduce that menace to the country-yet he seems eagerly willing for the big game to increase and become just such another ~menace. Why? I think most of us could |. eanswer the question. Mr. Endicott is apparently ignorant of the vital difference between New Zealand forests and those where mammals are indigenous. The introduction of browsing animals withoyt carnivora to maintain some balance has resulted in many of our forest areas being doomed, ‘because the essential forest _ floor has been destroyed. No action, possible,

can be too drastic.

E.

G.

(Auckland)