CONTROL OF PIGS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 117, 20 May 1933, Page 6

CONTROL OF PIGS.

FULL PRECAUTIONS.

OUTBREAK OF SWINE FEVER.

LOSS OF OVER 1100 ANIMALS,

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.)

WELLINGTON, this. day.

The Director of Agriculture, Dr. C. J. Reakes, says a gazette extraordinary was published to-day in order still further to ensure that the Department as a necessary precautionary measure can exercise full control not only in areas in wliicli swine fever is now known to exist, but also in adjacent areas where there is risk of its spreading. The' inclusion in the affected area of the whole of Makara and Hutt counties does not imply that the disease exists throughout them. So far as is known it is still limited to the Johnsonville district, except in one case at Western Hutt, where all pigs on a farm have been destroyed., ; Dr. Beakes says that the discovery of two dead pigs with their throats cut on the foreshore at Point Howard is disquieting, as an examination at the Wallaceville laboratory has shown tliat one was affected with swine fever. The whole of the Hutt Valley consequently is being thoroughly combed out by further close inspection. It is obligatory on owners to report disease, and in any case in which it is shown that they fail ill this duty the penal provisions of the Act will be rigidly enforced. The number of pigs in the Johnsonville district destroyed or awaiting destruction through infection with swine fever or contact with affected animals totals 1147. Six hundred have already been destroyed. No trouble is being experienced with the 43 relief workers engaged in digging trenches at Johnsonville for the burial of pigs.