8 A BUREAU OF BIOLOGICAL SURVEY, 



At the present time we have in the Commonwealth many laws and regulations, 

 as well as sanctuaries, quite sufficient to protect and allow our wild game to in- 

 crease and multiply without any danger of extinction, but we have no machinery 

 to enforce these laws, and there are no appointed rangers to look after the 

 sanctuaries. 



In New South Wales the Game and Wild Birds Protection Acts are adminis- 

 tered from the Colonial Secretary's Office by the police. In any district where 

 game or furs and skins are obtainable, the hunters will naturally study the habits 

 of the local policeman ; and also, where there is an open season in an adjoining 

 State they have no difficulty of disposing of their skins at the present prices, in 

 spite of the close season in New South Wales. The Dingo and Marsupial Destruc- 

 tion Act of 1918, Queensland, is carried out by members elected to the Marsupial 

 Boards and a tax to pay the bonus on dingoes and marsupial scalps is levied upon 

 all stockowners. 



First we must have uniform laws between the States if we are going to stamp 

 out the illicit trade in furs and skins. Secondly, we must have a qualified Com- 

 missioner, who is not only a practical zoologist, but is thoroughly acquainted with 

 the country and with the conditions under which such laws can be enforced. We 

 must have one who without injustice to the land owners or country residents, 

 would investigate every report of the undue increase of animals or birds, and 

 would take measures to keep them from becoming a pest, and regulate the shoot- 

 ing when he considered the protection should be raised. He should be entitled to 

 levy a royalty of 25 per cent, or even more upon the value of the skins and furs 

 of animals thus destroyed, for all wild game is the property of the State. 



Now, it is at the request of the members of the local Pastures Protection 

 Beard that the close season is lifted for a period of a month or more by the 

 Colonial Secretary and then indiscriminate slaughter sets in, and it is a wonder 

 that anything is left alive in the district when the period is up. These 

 boards also offer bonuses for the scalps of animals or heads of birds considered 

 noxious, with little or no knowledge of the value or otherwise of the so-called pest. 



Granted that the Pastures Protection Boards are composed of the resident 

 land owners of the district interested, their opinion, as judge and jury, on the 

 value of any creature that is eating the grass and herbage which they consider 

 would be better consumed by good merino sheep is liable to l>e prejudiced. Claim- 

 ing that no individual has any right to the free wild game that passes over the 

 land or nests and feeds upon it, we want to see the laws administered so that the 

 State, while collecting enough money to place a game warden in every district 

 shall receive a substantial addition to her revenue, and in open season a regular 

 supply of game shall be obtainable to form a valuable addition to our food sup- 

 plies. 



