Save the pukeko

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[color=blue:d0123b2128][b:d0123b2128]50,000 pukeko will be shot, group says [/b:d0123b2128][/color:d0123b2128]
05 May 2006

Up to 50,000 pukeko will fall victim to gun-wielding duck shooters during the three-month duck shooting season that begins tomorrow, an animal welfare organisation says. However, Fish and Game disputed the figures, saying only about 20,000 pukeko were killed.

Save Animals from Exploitation (Safe) said killing pukeko was senseless. It urged the Department of Conservation to protect the birds under upcoming amendments to the Wildlife Act. "The duck shooting season heralds the mass slaughter of ducks, geese and swan but few people realise duck shooters also set their sights on pukeko," Safe campaign director Hans Kriek said today. "Not only do we deprive pukekos of their natural habitat through reclamation and drainage of wetlands, duck shooters add injury to insult by killing these magnificent birds solely for fun."

Fish and Game spokesman Rick Cullinane told NZPA that Safe's claim was way off mark and that about 20,000 pukekos were killed every duck hunting season. Mr Cullinane said pukeko were native birds and they were listed in the Wildlife Act as gamebirds.

Fish and Game encouraged and promoted ethical hunting and did not support killing the birds for fun rather for food, he said. Unlike ducks and swans, pukeko were seldom eaten nor were they considered a significant pest species, Mr Kriek said.

He said duck shooters shot pukekos for fun and left their bodies to rot where they fell.
- NZPA

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Oh no Pukeko's are one of my favourite birds.

They were something we'd never seen before and to me were really beautiful. I was hoping to have them stroll through my garden, its one of my more wierd hopes about NZ.

How sad is this? I had a photo of one as my desktop for ages. :icon_redface: :icon_confused:

Given the choice between protecting the sandflies and the pukeko, I know which one I'd be selecting. Funny how NZ is so dedicated to protecting the vicious sandfly, yet doesn't seem to worry too much about the possibility of obliterating one of its harmless beautiful birds. Unless the pukeko can breed prolifically, there could eventually come a time when trigger-happy mankind could go a step too far.

[quote:c92f504309="MB"] there could eventually come a time when trigger-happy mankind could go a step too far.[/quote:c92f504309]

It's happened before. Idiots!!!! Makes me mad that.