PHOSPHORISED POLLARD

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25767, 31 March 1949, Page 6

PHOSPHORISED POLLARD

“THE ANSWER TO THE RABBIT ” From Our Own Reporter TIMARU, March 30. “We are convinced it is the answer,” said the chairman of the New Zealand Rabbit Destruction Council (Mr G. B. Baker), referring to the use of phosphorised -pollard against rabbits, at a meeting of the South Canterbury and North Otago Rabbit Boards’ Council to-day. A new pollard was now being manufactured for South Island use, he said. Mr Baker said he had just seen a striking kill in North Hawke’s Bay. For two months before the pollard was broadcast from horses, the country had been closed up, all rabbiters having been put off. Some property owners were so pessimistic about the outcome that they had not bothered to shift stock, and in consequence some bullocks were killed, and also pigs which had eaten the poisoned rabbits, but they considered the loss worthwhile, so good was the kill. It was very necessary to spell the country before laying the pollard, which should not be mixed by freelance rabbiters, said Mr Baker. In Hawke’s Bay in previous years the same pollard had been used without success, but on this occasion it had been mixed under the supervision oi an inspector. He would not say that trapping and other methods had no place in the destruction of rabbits, but pollard was the most successful, said Mr Baker.