RABBIT BOARDS SEEKING WILD PIG DESTRUCTION

Press, Volume C, Issue 29504, 4 May 1961, Page 7

RABBIT BOARDS SEEKING WILD PIG DESTRUCTION

The Rabbit Destruction Council is to be asked by the North Canterbury Rabbit Boards Council to approach the Government to bring down legislation so ♦ hat boards may be empowered to destroy wild pigs voluntarily, as w’ith wallabies and opossums. This remit from, the Parnassus Rabbit Board was approved at the annual meeting of the North Canterbury Rabbit Boards Council yesterday. The council was considering remits, to be presented to the annual conference of the South Island Rabbit Boards' Association at Invercargill on July 5 and 6. Mr P. Le Cren said that though pigs were not as widespread as opossums, they were more so than wallabies, which were confined to Waimate. Pigs were a problem throughout the whole of New Zealand. ‘There is no doubt of the economic importance. On definite blocks in the Parnassus Rabbit Board’s area we have proved that by pig destruction the lambing percentage has been lifted from 50 per cent, to 90 per cent, or over. There is also great damage done by pigs to fences and pastures. I feel this work could be done without detracting from our prime aim of killing the last rabbit.” Tlie rabbit boards were getting to the stage where they were pest control boards, said Mr B. A. Nicholls (Motanau Rabbit Board). He did not think extending activities to pigs would be a worry to the boards, and it would be a great asset to ratepayers. A remit from the Banks Peninsula Rabbit Board that the boards should not be asked to take on the work of opossum eradication except on the basis of a £3 for £1 subsidy, and a further remit that the bounty should be continued until boards have taken over control of opossums were also approved. When invited to speak to the meeting on matters which had come up for discussion the deputy-chairman of the Rabbit Destruction Council (Mr J. D. Shine) said he could not understand the thinking which had prompted the remits approved by the meeting. “Nonplussed” “Your first two remits contradict one another,” said Mr Shine. “In the first you ask that the destruction council make moves to have rabbit boards destroy wild pigs, and in the next you ask that boards should not be asked to take on opossum eradication work except on a £3 for £1 subsidy. This leaves me a little nonplussed “I am well aware of the damage caused by pigs, especially in the North Island, but I think that spreading our work to them would divide our efforts too far. At present, the boards have a great deal of work to do with rabbits, wallabies, and opossums—perhaps we should digest that first before we start taking on anything else.” Mr Shine said that pigs liked opossums, and it was probable that a good number of pigs would be killed as the result of opossum operations. The rabbit boards were well prepared to take over killing of opossums, and the only alternative would be the establishment of a separate organisation in a separate rating. “I take it as a vote of lack of confidence in the

association when asked for a £3 for £1 subsidy on opossums,” said Mr Shine. “The South Island Babbit Boards’, Association has already agreed to the £1 for £l. Then you say you want the bounty kept on. “Surely you have gone through all this business of commercialisation of vermin before. You, along with other organisations, strove to achieve devaluation of the rabbit, and all authorities have agreed that this devaluation was a major factor in reducing the vermin. So long as you keep its value up, you won’t destroy it.” Therefore it had been agreed that the first step in rabbit boards taking over opossums was devaluation, 1 said Mr Shine. “What you■ fought against so hard with I rabbits you are now wanting! preserved with opossums. Under the bounty system, not! one worth-while result was! achieved.”