THE RABBIT MENACE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 155, 2 July 1937, Page 11

THE RABBIT MENACE.

RAVAGES IN BRITAIN. POISON GAS ADVOCATED. YET THOUSANDS IMPORTED. (Special.—By Air Man.) LONDON, June 12. In 1936 Britain spent £363,850 on imported dead rabbits, yet eo serious is the native-born rabbit problem that the use of poison gas is advocated for the destruction of the pest. In the last few years the rabbit population has multiplied to the point where it threatens to become a national menace, as in Australia. Britain's Forestry Commission puts its annual loss through the ravages of rabbits at £30,000.

A Committee of the House of Lords, Avhich investigated the position last year, was told that the commission knew of no district in Great Britain where it could plant trees without first of all getting the rabbits under control. Acres of good farmland have deteriorated into common land through failure to keep rabbits in check. Nationally, their ravages are estimated to cost millions of pounds a year. Yet gas would destroy their food value and would probably damage the fur. In districts where rabbits live in rough cover and have no burrows it is admittedly ineffective. In any case, advocates of Government action point out, if rabbits are to be brought under control there must be action over wide areas. To start a campaign on one farm or in a limited area ie simply to drive the survivors into adjoining areas, from which they will filter back when activities die down. Alternative plans for a link-up between the rabbit problem and national nutrition are now being pressed on the Mini-stor of Agriculture. They are prompted by the Government's new agricultural policy, under which several millions are to be spent on improving the quality of land and live stock. It is pointed out that for a small extra sum professional rabbit catchers could be subsidised to destroy them in a way that would not affect their food value, and they could be made available at nominal prices to the unemployed-