WAILLABY MENACE

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 26, 31 January 1924, Page 9

WAILLABY MENACE

QUEENSLAND'S TROUBLES

VOEACIOUS MULTITUDES.

(FROM' C'R OWN fORRESPONDLNT.) .SYDNEY, 24th January. While, for sentimental reasons, people in the more settled regions deplore the rapid extermination of Australia's native, animals, and movements for their greater protection gain wide support, settlers in the more remote regions^are cudgelling, their brains to devise means of keeping them within reasonable numbers. To the Sydney resident the wallaby, for, instance, is an 'interesting creature^. just like a. miniature kangaroo, and people delight to keep them as pets. They are easily tamed, and become very affectionate, but in parts of Queensland they are becoming^ such a pest that one pastures board decided last week to. appeal to the Government' to contribute towards increasing the payments allowed, by the board for the scalps of these animals, and of dingoes. This board, which, serves -the Googano district, out from Eockhampton,, has in the past'had to devote its attention more to the dingo pest, and last year paid over £10,000 for the scalps of -these voracious wild dogs, which roam about by thousands, ' and while its attention has been thus occupied the wallabies, it appears, have increased at an alarming rate until they have become numerous as rabbits, devouring crops and grass and involving enormous losses upon the settlers. ■:• Many farmers spend much time ,in shooting the wallabies down, but the trouble is beyond such individual effort, and through their local associations they have urged the board to make a concerted effort to wipe out the pest. When the scalp price is high ""enough, as in the # case of the dingoes, men go'out trapping and shooting for a livelihood, and. the object of the appeal to the Government is to enable sufficient payjnen,ts to : bi offered in the case of the wallabies to bring this method oj at--tank into-fprce^