RABBIT BOARD

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 82, 7 April 1938, Page 5

RABBIT BOARD

WAIRARAPA PROJECT

(Special to the "Evening Post.")

MASTERTON, This Day.

Although the proposal met with a certain amount of opposition, at a largely-attended meeting of district farmers in Masterton yesterday it was decided to approve the principle of establishing a rabbit board.

A section of the meeting expressed the view that far better results could be obtained by leaving the work of combating the pest to individual farmers.

On the other hand, it was pointed out by the chairman, Mr. A. H. Falloon, and others, that farmers were not getting anywhere under the present system of rabbit inspection and" eradication.

After an extended discussion, in the course of which Mr. W. B. Manning, principal inspector to the Live Stock Department, gave much helpful advice, a motion to approve of the principle of the establishment of a rabbit board was carried by 23 votes to 15.

Opinions were divided as to what area the proposed board should embrace. The original proposal was to include an area of 120,000 acres, but the consensus of opinion at the meeting was that a considerably larger area should be embraced and that the whole of the district from Eketahuna to Cape Palliser could be controlled just as economically as the 120,000 acres. It was eventually decided to invite the Eketahuna, Mauriceville, Castlepoint, Masterton, South Wairarapa, and Featherston counties to send delegates, with power to vote, to decide whether the area they controlled should be brought within the scope of the board's activities.