The Kea: a New Zealand problem/Chapter 12
CHAPTER XII.
KEA HUNTING.
The speargrass crackles under the billy and overhead is the winter sun;
. . . . . .
We lay in the lee of a rock, and waited, hungry and cold, for the morning light.
—David McKee Wright.
When it was discovered that the Kea was probably responsible for the annual loss of a large number of sheep, men at once set to work to try to exterminate him.
Incited by the sheep-owner and encouraged by the Government, an organised massacre was begun, and has continued during the last forty years, resulting in the slaughter of thousands of these interesting birds.
At first nearly every shepherd and musterer carried fire-arms, and while going about their work they lost no opportunity of shooting any Keas that came within gunshot. The half-crown per head given by the sheep-owner did much to stimulate the shooting. When, however, owing to being much hunted, the Kea became difficult to approach, the men were unable to afford the necessary time to stalk the bird, and other means of keeping down the pest had to be adopted.
The station-owners then employed men whose sole duty was to kill Keas and rabbits. The position was no sinecure, for only the strong, agile and fearless could undertake the work.
The hunters were usually supplied with fire-arms, ammunition, food, horses, etc., and besides receiving a weekly wage they were paid so much per head for all Keas shot.
In order to give a graphic idea of the ordinary routine of a Kea-hunter’s life, I cannot do better than quote from a letter from Mr. J. S. Ryan, who for many years hunted this mountain parrot around Mt. White, Canterbury.
He writes as follows:—“To hunt the Kea for pleasure or profit is an undertaking that only those who are sound in wind and limb can indulge in with safety. It is not for the untrained plainsman or the ‘tired Tims,’ who would most propably take more time thinking how to get to the mountain top than they would spend in climbing there. Kea hunting is mostly combined with rabbiting, since one could hardly hunt the Kea from day to day throughout the year without a spell. Rabbiting ‘between whiles’ on the low lands affords the necessary change. The usual thing is a weekly wage, and so much per head for Keas, free ‘tucker’[1] for self and dogs, a pack-horse, a riding horse, camping outfit (consisting of tent, ‘billy,’[2] knife and fork, tomahawk, and piece of wire for grid), bread and flour, currants for ‘duff’[3] on wet days, butter (if there is any), with as much mutton and potatoes as you care to pack up. To these you add the weekly sporting paper and magazines. A good appetite between meals comes of its own accord. You start ‘out back,’ say, on Monday morning after coming in for supplies. You have a fair day’s ride to the ‘out back’ hut, where you pull up for the night, hobble the horses and sleep like a top after the usual good tea of chops, potatoes and ‘billy’ tea. Next morning you leave half your supplies at the hut, load up the pack-horse with the remainder, and then start on your way again. Now comes the river, which you cross continually as you work your way up to its source in the same gorge, until you reach the very heart of the mountains, and the towering rocky walls close in on you on either side. It is here that the shrill whistle of the blue mountain duck strikes on your ear through the rush and roar of the river as it twists and leaps among the boulders and dashes its spray on to the bush that comes right down to the water’s edge. You now look out for the best camping ground you can find. Having found a place that suits you, you hobble the horses, after taking them back to the last bit of good feed you passed, pitch your camp, tie up and feed the dogs, break birch twigs for a bed, get supper, read for a while before ‘lights out,’ and then sleep. And how you sleep among the mountains after a long day’s ride or climb! Now you are in the very heart of the Kea country, and perhaps you
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Kea country: In pursuit of the Kea in Summer. Fording the Avoca River.
rouse up to hear the dogs barking and the Keas singing out overhead. Or you have been dreaming that you are on your way back to the station with the pack-horse loaded up with Keas’ heads and your fortune made, and you wake to find a dog loose among the ‘tucker.’ In either case it’s time to get up and get a move on if you are to be among the Keas before they camp for the day. Having breakfasted on the inevitable chops, you pack your lunch for the day’s hunting, the said lunch consisting of more chops (cold), slice of bread and butter, a ‘chunk’[4] of ‘brownie,’[5] and tea and sugar, for you always take the ‘billy’ with you. Cartridges and a light single-barrelled gun slung over the shoulder finish your equipment. You put out the fire, unloose a dog, see that the others are all right, and give them a parting word and pat, grip your stick, on which your life may depend in ticklish places, and off you go for a two or three hours’ climb to the top, just as dawn is beginning to show in the east and there is still hardly light to enable you to pick your way among the boulders and fallen timber. The reason you always take a dog with you in Kea hunting is that if you should have the ill-luck to break your neck the dog in time will, owing to hunger, find his way back to the homestead, and thus give silent notice that something has happened to his master. Then the search parties go out. Nip, my favourite spaniel, could spot a Kea on the wing long before I could. When the birds are flying far overhead they will call out ‘keo-o,’ with the last ‘o’ long drawn out. When Nip heard this characteristic note, up would go his head, and he would almost stand on his hind legs. To see him hunt for that Kea in the sky was laughable indeed. I could tell when he found the bird by his intense gaze, and by the beating of his stumpy tail on the ground. Then I would whistle to the Kea, and unsling my gun, telling Nip to watch the Kea as it circled round and dived down. The old dog has fallen backwards many a time, so intent was he on keeping the Kea in sight. Down would come the bird, well within gun-shot—I have had to walk away so that I should not blow one to pieces. When one is paid for killing the birds and five shillings depend on the shot, you do not give the bird a sporting chance by firing at it on the wing. In hunting the Kea you must be up on the mountain top about daylight, to catch the birds going home after their night’s carouse. The Kea, however, will be out feeding and courting all day and all night as well. I have killed them at all hours, from the first streak of dawn to the last faint glimmer of daylight. The best time, however, is either in the evening or the morning, when they are going to their feeding grounds or leaving them. They mostly go in pairs in the breeding season; then, when the young are able to fly about, they travel for a while in families, and afterwards towards the winter they club together. I once counted over thirty in a mob, but alas, through having been among the rabbits, my ammunition had almost run out, and I only got nine out of them. The Kea is,
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Kea country: Author’s Camp.
I am confident, the most inquisitive bird alive. One may be just visible as a speck in the sky, but if it has no important engagement on hand a whistle will often bring it down to you at once. It was my habit when shooting Keas to pick off the outsiders or timid ones first, if there were more than two,—I always took two at a time. At the report from the gun the others would give a nervous start, erect the few feathers that do duty for a top-knot and look at me as much as to say ‘What the dickens was that noise?’ You may go for days without seeing a single bird, for Kea hunting is rather a lottery, but I would keep going where they had been seen at the sheep, and I was bound to get them in the long run. The Kea-hunter’s life is not all ‘beer and skittles,’ still, with all the hardships through getting caught in fog or snow on the tops, and so forth, there is something fascinating about it.
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Kea country: In pursuit of the Kea in winter.
When once you have got a taste of the free life, fresh air, and sunshine of a kind which is only found amongst the mountains, you can never forget it, and at times the longing to climb once again is almost irresistible.”
As Kea hunting is taken up by men all over the Kea country, and each man has to find out the most successful method of killing the birds, there were and are many different ways employed. The commonest method is by shooting them with a shot gun, and as the birds are extremely tame and inquisitive it is not usually very difficult to get near them once they are in view.
Several devices are employed to entice the birds within range, and one which is very successful is the using of a decoy. A tame Kea is chained to a rock, and his noisy, excited cries soon attract other Keas that are in the vicinity. As these appear they are shot by the Kea-hunter, who is hidden behind a rock.
An extension of this device is to get two Keas in separate cages and to place them so that they cannot see one another, yet near enough to hear each other’s cries. This causes them to make a great fuss in trying to attract each other, and is generally successful in bringing down a lot of their wild mates.
One man I knew used to take a square yard of scarlet cloth, which he carefully spread out over a rock, placing stones on it to prevent the wind from carrying it away. The vivid colour can be seen a long distance away, in contrast to the sombre colouring of the mountain side; and the Keas, sighting it, heedless of the hidden danger, fly down to satisfy their curiosity, and so become spoil for the hunter’s gun.
Some men have learned to imitate the Kea’s peculiar call, and this seldom fails to add heads to the heap already obtained.
When a number of Keas is present and the Kea-hunter has no more cartridges, the following trick is sometimes resorted to. While in full sight of the birds, he walks behind an overhanging ledge of rock and remains quiet; the Keas, who have been watching his every movement, are almost overwhelmed with a longing to know where he has vanished. They fly on to the rock, and have a somewhat animated discussion as to the reason of his disappearance. Finally one bird walks to the edge and peeps over at him as much as to say, “What on earth are you doing there?” This is the Kea-hunter’s chance; there is a swift blow from his stick, and the Kea topples over. The other birds, seeing that number one has not come back to report, but has also disappeared over that mysterious ledge, likewise go to inspect, and often quite a number are killed in this strange way.
The second general method is to shoot the birds while they are feeding on the remains of a sheep. The men take the bearings of some sheep that has been killed, and if they cannot find a carcase they sometimes kill a beast and then camp near it at night. Moonlight nights are generally chosen, so that the birds can be seen at the body, and usually a number of Keas fly down from the surrounding peaks and begin to gorge themselves. The men do not shoot them at once, but wait until the birds have stuffed themselves with meat and fat. Then they are shot one after the other, for they are too lazy and full to hasten away.
One correspondent gives the following account:—“At Makaroa Station in spring I was shooting Keas pretty well every night when I carried a gun. I would hunt about for dead carcases. If I came on a freshly-killed sheep, or one partly eaten, I was always sure of a good haul. I would wait about until the Keas came. Sometimes they would arrive in mobs; at other times in a straggling way. I would then take up my position, a little distance off the meat, and wait until they got on to it to feed. My object was to line them so as to get as many as I could at one shot. Though they would fly off at each shot, they would be back again almost immediately. I would keep at them in this way until they got a little frightened, then I would follow them up and shoot them as I could. I think the largest number that I ever got in that way was sixty-three off two dead sheep. I have at other times got from twenty to fifty; but often I would only get about six or seven, and at other times none at all.”
Mr. Robert Guthrie, an old Kea-hunter, thus describes his experience in connection with one “camp,” where the Keas were very troublesome:—“The ‘camp’ was as usual high up; it was situated on a large plateau, where it was impossible to get near without disturbing the sheep and the Keas. I used to wait till well on in the night, and go, as quietly as possible, straight to the camp. The Keas, nine of them, were there the first night. I got two of them, and they came fairly regularly until I had got them all but one. This one was from the very first in the habit of rising rather wild, and I got to know it well from an unusual call that it had. However, although I got eight out of the nine, the killing went on as badly as ever. Sometimes as many as three sheep would be killed in one night, but, try as I would, I could not steal unawares upon the culprit, for he was always alert and became very sparing with his peculiar call. After many nights of weary walk and disappointment (I had a ten mile tramp each time, five miles there and five miles back), it struck me that its call, after it had flown away, always came from the same direction. This was across a deep gorge, among some almost inaccessible rocks.
“The next day I went and carefully examined the rocks, and I could see in an open crevice, about sixty feet above me, a hole, which I was satisfied was the Kea’s run. I came to the conclusion that this would be a likely place for him to spend the time after his night’s carnival; and I determined, therefore, at first full moon to bring my gun and watch below for his home coming.
“After a good many disappointments, I was sitting on a stone about three o’clock one clear frosty morning in August just beneath the crevices, and was just dropping off to sleep, with my gun on my knees, when a black shadow crossed the stones at my feet.
“I looked up, and saw a Kea just alighting on the edge of the rock. I had it down in a twinkling. It was no doubt the old bird, for in my time on the station there were no more sheep killed in the camp.”
The last general method employed is a very effective one, though sometimes risky, and consists in poisoning the dead carcases of the sheep that have been killed by the Kea. Strychnine is sometimes used alone; but more often this is mixed with arsenic, which is found to be very effective.
A dead sheep, preferably one killed by the Kea, is half skinned and the poison is rubbed in, sometimes the Kea wounds alone being treated.
During the night the birds come to feed on the remains of their earlier carousal, and usually by daylight a number of Keas will be found lying on or around the dead body.
One Kea-hunter says:—“Another camp where the Keas used to kill was very high up, in a rough place which was almost inaccessible at night. I shot what Keas I could find about in the day time, but never the right one, for the killing still continued. I half skinned a sheep they had killed in the camp, and put strychnine in it. When I came back in a few days I found five dead Keas. That ended the killing of the sheep in that camp.”
From North Otago, where the Keas are still plentiful, comes the following account:—“We then baited three of the sheep carcases with strychnine, and sent a man out to camp on the spur. He picked up eight poisoned Keas, two of which were actually on top of the carcase, as well as shooting twenty more of the birds.”
The poisoning has this advantage, that, if it does not always poison the Keas that kill the sheep, it at least kills those who gather round to share the spoil.
But this method, though very effective, has its disadvantages, for the poisoned carcase may remain for months and be a continual menace to all sheep-dogs passing that way. Shepherds are continually travelling up and down the country accompanied by numerous sheep-dogs, which owing to their splendid training are invaluable in the rough country. It is almost impossible to keep them always in sight; and, as they seem to be ever hungry, unless great care is taken they get at the poisoned carcase. In this way a shepherd, in attempting to rid his station of Keas, may lose more by the death of his dog than he has through the ravages of the birds all the winter. Therefore poisoning has to be done with great care; and, rather than leave the carcase to rot, it is often finally burnt and the remains are buried.
Even since suspicion fell on the Kea he has been legally branded as an outlaw. No game laws protect him. He knows not the peace of a close season. Regarded as having his beak against every man, every man’s hand has been against him.
Unfortunately, no full record has been kept of the numbers killed, but the following statistics will give some idea of the carnage. The Selwyn County Council has paid out, since 1887, £262 9s. 6d.
The Ashburton County Council since 1891 has paid out £24 16s. 6d., while the Amuri County Council received 531 heads in one season. Mr. Rolleston, from a small run of his in Ashburton County, received 800 heads in one season; and the Lake County Council up to 1884, had paid for 2000 beaks.
Another office received 1574 heads; while, since 1889, the McKenzie County Council has paid out £193 6s. 6d. for 3866 Keas.
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Keas’ heads: As they are received at the County Council Offices.
The price paid per head by the different Councils depends a good deal on the amount of damage done, though usually 2s. 6d. is the price; to-day several men do not consider 10s. per head too high a price.
Mr. E. B. Milton, of Birch Hill Station, Canterbury, in a letter to me on the payment for Keas’ heads, says:—“I have paid ten shillings per head since 1900, and in my experience the damage done to the sheep has not been serious since a substantial reward was instituted. The payment of a high price for heads is the best means of keeping shepherds and others, engaged in the hill country, continually on the war path. Four of my neighbours now pay ten shillings each for heads.”
Up to 1906 the Government paid 6d. per head, but this has been raised to 1s.; and, as the station owners usually pay 1s. 6d., the men receive altogether 2s. 6d. per head.
When the birds are shot either the upper mandible is pulled off and kept in a match box until the station is reached, or else the head is screwed off and, when brought in to the homestead, threaded on a string or wire.
It is quite a common sight on the back stations to see a number of old decaying heads hanging on a nail in some little-used shed. Here they usually remain until a stock inspector visits the place or some one pays a visit to the nearest town. It naturally follows that the heads become so decayed that the offensive odour given out from them makes it almost impossible to count them out.
One County Council clerk promised to send me down a large supply of heads for scientific purposes, but they smelt so badly that he knew the railway authorities would refuse to carry them, and so he buried the heads to get rid of them.