LUCKY RATS.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 117, 19 May 1924, Page 4

LUCKY RATS.

IN AtfCKXAITD PARKSPLENTY COVER AND FOOD. I While the rat-catchers are busy on the i waterfront, little or nothing seems to ibe done to exterminate the vermin swarming in the public parks of Auckland. Albert Park, for example, is teaming with the rodents, which play about on the grass in broad daylight as if they had not a care in the world. Another favourite breeding ground is at the bottom of Mount Eden crater, where quite a colony of rate has been seen recently. Albert Park is peculiarly suitable for the harbouring of these pests, for the thickly-growing banks of ivy and creepers on the elopes provide an amount of I "housing accommodation ,, which must be the envy of many bipeds. Not only is there ample room for the rats to live and multiply in the undergrowth, but it is of such a nature as to give them i almost perfect aeonrity from the few stray dogs which, ignoring the notice prohibiting their entry into the park, occasionally scamper across the lawns. Time and again the public have been warned not' to throw away scraps of food, but even the use of the waste paper baskets does not prevent the rats from reaching the tasty morsels deposited therein, and their "daily bread" is provided as regularly as if it were Heaven-sent manna. No sooner have j the lunch parties departed from the park than the rats poke their heads out of their hiding-places and are not long in getting down to business. I The rat pest in public gardens is not I peculiar to Auckland, of course, nor to New Zealand. Civic authorities elsewhere have sometimes ignored the matter so long that the vermin swarming in ivy beds have become -a grave menace to public health, and instances have occurred where the only remedy waa to dig out the shelter beds. Sad as is the i .. ~i,S. y\ present position in the city parka, it is possible that the laying of poison might bo sufficient to kill out most of the rats. The rat-killing on the wharves and adjacent properties is steadily maintained, and recently the Auckland Harbour Board, on the suggestion of the Public Health Department, took steps to repair the stone breastwork at King's wharf, in the cracks and holea of which a huge number of rats have been living. A dozen per night have been caught in one waterfront building for months past. The traps need capture the rate alive, and each morning the "catch" jumps to sudden death in a blazing furnace.