SEVERE DROUGHT

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27875, 25 January 1956, Page 12

SEVERE DROUGHT

No Feed In South

Canterbury STOCK KILLED OFF (New Zealand Press Association) TIMARU, January 24. Sheep sheltering in the thin shadow of gateposts or listlessly grazing grass where no grass seems to exist; hillsides once green and lush now burned yellow in sharp contrast against the harsh blue of the sky; on every metai road, dust clouds of passing traffic, the vehicles almost obscured in a shimmering haze of heat —this picture is the same on plain and upland in South Canterbury. It is a picture getting grimmer each day as the drought continues. In eight weeks there have been two light showers of rain, and farmers are searching desperately through the South Island for hay to feed famished animals. They are killing off ewes and lambs because these can no longer be kept for fattening. Much stock is on the highways and is ignored as at least there is feed at the roadsides while paddocks are cropped so hard that even the roots of grass have been eaten.

Ewes and lambs, which would have been fattened to sell at 30s a head, are now being sold as potters to freezing works for 5s a head. Farmers are not looking forward to their income tax demands, with banks unable to give credit to meet the tax payments. Fat stock sales might have helped them but, with the drought, this source of income has gone.

Nearly 20,000 brown trout in South Canterbury rivers owe their lives to the South Canterbury Acclimatisation Society. Ten thousand trout from the Pareora river have had to be transferred to deeper holes in the river, and 7000 from the Opihi, 1500 from Hae Hae Te Moana, and hundreds from the Tengawai river have been moved to the Temuka river and lakes Alexandrina and Murray. Had this mass salvaging not been undertaken, the trout would have died as the rivers dried up. Up-to-date equipment made possible this operation, which is the biggest ever attempted. This summer’s drought has been so severe that the rivers are drying up in certain sections and in other places the water is so low and still that trout have not been able to get air. It is the first time in 30 years that trout have had to.be cleared in hundreds from the Tengawai.

The acclimatisation society will continue to transfer trout until the drought breaks. In rivers which are drying up or pools which have become so still that the fish cannot get air, they are caught in nets and transported in tanks on lorries to sources of fresh water.