Wild Dogs.
It may seem strange to speak of dogs as wild animals in New Zealand, and it is questionable whether there are any wild dogs at the present time, but in the early days of settlement they were fairly abundant, and were truly feral. Dogs are the most thoroughly domesticated of animals, and in none has the moral and intellectual faculties been more highly developed. But just as some men degrade these faculties to the basest uses and become a menace to the rest of their race, so some dogs—only a few, it must be admitted—go wild and become a menace to their human companions and masters.
It is of interest to remember that when Captain Cook came to New Zealand the Natives had dogs, which they had brought with them from their original homes in Polynesia. Most of the histories of the migrations of the Maori refer to the fact of their bringing dogs with them, so that they had probably been in the country for some centuries before the date of Cook’s visit in 1769. Crozet, who visited these Islands in 1772, saw these dogs, and described them as follows: “The dogs are a sort of domesticated fox, quite black or white, very low on the legs, straight ears, thick tail, long body, full jaws, but more pointed than that of the fox, and uttering the same cry. They do not bark like our dogs. These animals are only fed on fish, and it appears that the savages only raise them for food. Some were taken on board our vessels, but it was impossible to domesticate them like our dogs: they were always treacherous, and bit us frequently. They would have been dangerous to keep where poultry was raised or had to be protected: they would destroy them just like true foxes.”
Forster, in his account of Cook’s second voyage, writing of the Queen Charlotte Sound Natives in 1773, says, “A good many dogs were observed in their canoes, which they seemed very fond of, and kept tied with a string round their middle. They were of a rough, long-haired sort, with pricked ears, and much resembled the common shepherd’s cur or Count Buffon’s chien de berger. They were of different colours, some quite black and others perfectly white. The food which these dogs receive is fish, or the same as their masters live on, who afterwards eat their flesh and employ the fur in various ornaments and dresses.” Later on in the same journal he says, “The officers had ordered their black dog to be killed, and sent to the captain one-half of it. This day (June 9), therefore, we dined for the first time on a leg of it roasted, which tasted so exactly like mutton that it was absolutely undistinguishable.... In New Zealand and in the tropical isles of the South Sea the dogs are the most stupid, dull animals imaginable, and do not seem to have the least advantage in point of sagacity over our sheep. In the former country they are fed upon fish; in the latter, on vegetables.”
Bellingshausen, who visited New Zealand in 1820, says, “We saw no quadrupeds except dogs of a small species. Captain Lazarew bought a couple. They are rather small, have a woolly tail, erect ears, a large mouth, and short legs.”
Dieffenbach, writing nearly seventy years after Cook’s visit, remarks that “the native dog was formerly considered a dainty, and great numbers of them were eaten; but the breed having undergone an almost complete mixture with the European, their use as an article of food has been discontinued, as the European dogs are said by the Natives to be perfectly unpalatable. The New Zealand dog is different from the Australian dingo; the latter resembles in size and shape the wolf, while the former rather resembles the jackal.”
The Rev. Richard Taylor, author of “Te Ika a Maui,” who is not always a reliable authority where natural history is concerned, says, “The New Zealand dog was small and long-haired, of a dirty white or yellow colour, with a bushy tail. This the Natives say they brought with them when they first came to these Islands.” Then he adds, “It is not improbable, however, that they found another kind already in the country, brought by the older Melanesian race, with long white hair and black tail: it is said to have been very quiet and docile.”
The Maori dog has totally disappeared. Mr. S. Percy Smith, of New Plymouth, tells me that the last one he heard of was about 1896. But I have mentioned it here because it was in part the progenitor of the wild dogs which afterwards became such a dangerous nuisance to sheep-breeders.
When settlement began European dogs must have crossed freely with the native animal, and many, both of the introduced and crossed dogs, became truly wild, especially as there were sheep and goats to worry, and pigs to chase and kill.
Dr. Lyall, who was surgeon on H.M.S. “Acheron” during the survey of the coast of New Zealand in 1844, says of the kakapo, or owl-parrot, that “at a very recent period it was common all over the west coast of the Middle Island; but there is now a race of wild dogs said to have overrun all the northern part of this shore, and to have almost exterminated the kakapo wherever they have reached.” Brunner, who visited the West Coast a few years later, makes a similar statement in his Journal. The early settlers could not distinguish between Maori dogs and these wild, half-bred curs. Thus R. Gillies, writing in after-years of the early days of the Otago settlement, which was formed in 1848, says, “For some years after the settlers arrived here the wild dog was the terror of the flockmaster, and the object of his inveterate hostility.” W. D. Murison, formerly editor of the Otago Daily Times, writing at the same period (1877), tells how in 1858 he and his brother took up country in the Maniototo Plains, which they reached by the valley of the Shag River. The wild dogs were very troublesome. The first was caught by a kangaroo-dog, apparently imported from Australia for the purpose of hunting them. “This particular wild dog was yellow in colour, and so was the second killed; but the bulk of those ultimately destroyed by us were black-and-white, showing a marked mixture of the collie. The yellow dogs looked like a distinct breed. They were low-set, with short pricked ears, broad forehead, sharp snout, and bushy tail. Indeed, those acquainted with the dingo professed to see little difference between that animal and the New Zealand yellow wild dog. It may be remarked, however, that most of the other dogs we killed, although variously coloured, possessed nearly all the other characteristics of the yellow dog. The wild dogs were generally to be met with in twos and threes; they fed chiefly on quail, ground-larks, young ducks, and occasionally on pigs. On one occasion, when riding through the Idaburn Valley, we came across four wild dogs baiting a sow and her litter of young ones in a dry, tussocky lagoon. To our annoyance our own dogs joined in the attack upon the sow, and the wild dogs got away without our getting one of them.... In all we destroyed fifty-two dogs between September, 1858, and December, 1860.”
Taylor White, writing in 1889, says, “I consider these dogs entirely distinct from the European dog. For the wild dogs met with on the Waimakariri River, in the alpine ranges of Canterbury, during the year 1856, were in colour and markings identical with those found in the alpine region of Lake Wakatipu in 1860, a distance of several hundred miles apart. There seems little room to doubt that they were an original Maori dog. The fact of their wanting the two tan spots over the eyes mostly seen in European dogs of approximate colour is a very strong evidence also in favour of this opinion.”
At one time wild dogs were so common in Marlborough and did so much damage on the sheep-runs that packs of hunting-dogs were bred for the special purpose of running them down. As settlement proceeded and the country became opened up wild dogs were gradually exterminated. The only ones which are now met with are curs which have taken to rabbits or to sheep-killing, and have managed to escape from their owners.
Bellingshausen reported wild dogs on the Macquaries in 1820, but it is improbable that they long survived the sealers, who probably generally brought them to the islands. As soon as the killing of seals and sea-lions stopped the dogs in all probability died out. Captain Musgrave, who was wrecked on Auckland Island in 1864, discovered wild dogs, like sheep-dogs, on the island. Their case, however, was probably similar to those on the Macquaries, for I am not aware that any subsequent visitor to the island has seen them.
In a reprint from the Auckland Herald of the 18th November, 1866, we read, “It is not generally known that about Otamatea and the Wairoa the bush is infested with packs of wild dogs, as ferocious, but more daring, than wolves. These dogs hunt in packs of from three to six or eight. They are strong, gaunt, large animals, and dangerous when met by a man alone. Not long since a Maori, when travelling from one settlement to another through the forest, was attacked by three of these animals at dusk, and only saved himself by climbing into a tree, where he was kept prisoner until late the next day. The extensive district over which these packs roam was once well stocked with wild pigs, but most of these have fallen victims to the dogs, and since this supply of food has failed the dogs have ventured after dark to the neighbourhood of Native settlements and the homesteads of European settlers in quest of prey.”