WILD PIGS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 69, 22 March 1941, Page 6

WILD PIGS.

EFFECTIVE POISONING. SUCCESS IN KING COUNTRY. (0.c.) TAU.MAItCNUr, Friday. F..r years past wild pi.Lis have canned King Country farmers muoh concern and although a bounty has been paid by the (liivorniuont at. different period* for snouts this has had little or no effect in ridding the back block* of the menace. Mipny farmers have f-utVorod heavily this season by the depredations of the pigs and in some instances hundred* of young lamlhs have been lost and much damage has been caused to fences ami pastures. Kxperiinentfl in poisoning carried out recently by the stock inspector. Mr. (I. ]■>. .Mackintosh, on farms in the Tnumarunui. Ohuva and Kaitieke counties, liave met. with amazing success. The met hod which has proved so Kuecensfnl is poisoning with phosphorus dissolved in carbon bisulphide. The chemicals have a similar odour to that of decaying moat and apparently the pigs cannot detect it when it is used in such a bait.

Experiments with fdrychnine and phosphorus on its own have met with little or no eiieeef;*.

The first experiments were carried out on the property oi" llr. W. B. J_,acy. Wado's Landinjr. wlm provided three ranis and a. lionet, a* bait. The poison was injected with a surgical needle, about two ounces beiny used. The jiins finet bepau to eat the bait when it hid been out four days, apparently preferring it in a putrified state. *In throe weeks the whole of the bait had been eaten and a search revealed about a dozen pig* <lead within 100 vard«s of the baits. A number of other farmers in the dis--11 i<*t June poisoned in the same manner and the result, ha.; been the destruction of hundred* of wild pij;s.