RABBIT PLAGUE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 194, 17 August 1932, Page 11

RABBIT PLAGUE.

DESPERATE SITUATION. N.S.W. PASTORALISTS' LOSSES. STATE BONUS SUGGESTED. (From Our Own. Correspondent.) SYDNEY, August 13. Many years ago, when rabbits here had increased on such a scale that they threatened the pastoral industries with extinction, desperate efforts were made to keep the pest in check, and they were to a large extent successful. But in recent years, and more especially since tho depression started, the low price that rabbits fetch either for carcase or sk-in has checked trapping, and so the man on the land has not been able to spend so much, money as heretofore in keeping tho rabbit down. The result is that, throughout the west and south-west, round Picton and Kiama, in the Riverina, round Parkes, Tamworth, Wilcannia and many other rural centres, the situation from the pastoral point of view is almost desperate once more. Of course the export of frozen rabbits has reached quite respectable dimensions. Not long ago there were 6,000,000 carcases, in Sydney awaiting transport to London. But this represents a very small set oil to the devastation which sheep owners and graziers credit to "bunny." It is generally held that eight rabbits eat ae much grass as one sheep, and it is maintained by those who can claim to speak with authority that, if there were no rabbits in New South Wales, the State could run from 10,000,000 to 20,000,000 more sheep—of course, to its great and permanent enrichment.

Nothing will keep the rabbit down but persistent and continuous netting, digging out and poisoning, and the land owners simply cannot afford these things now. Then when water and grass are Bcarce, tho rabbit pulls tho grass up by the roots, and many droughts in the west are due more to the rabbit than to lack of rain. There is a strong and growing demand for State action to deal with this terrible pest, and the most effective remedy would appear to be the offer of a bonus for each rabbit destroyed. This is certainly a matter that the Country party will bring under the notice of Government; for if something is not done speedily to cope with the situation the consequence may become, in the words of one of the wester rt inspectors, "too terrible to contemplate."