RABBIT PROBLEM

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 156, 30 December 1940, Page 3

RABBIT PROBLEM

BOTH PEST AND FOOD

ANOMALIES DISCUSSED

Anomalies in regard to rabbit marketing in New Zealand were pointed out by a Wanganui resident in an interview with a "Post" reporter. He said that although rabbits are all too plentiful only a few miles from Wanganui, rabbits from Otago are shipped there for consumption, incurring charges for transport, and impairing the freshness of the meat, particularly in hot weather.

"The Government is spending thousands a year subsidising rabbit boards which destroy rabbits with poison," he said, "but the public are paying Is each, and in some cases Is 3d, for rabbits. Years ago in Wellington Blenheim rabbits were sold at Cd a pair; yet at that time the skins were almost unsaleable, returning about id each. Today the skins have a distinct value.

"We in Wanganui are getting rabbits brought from Otago, while there is a district only 22 miles from Wanganui where the people are singing out for someone to kill off the pests. Those rabbits from the south have to be railed up from Dunedin, shipped to Wellington, and railed to Wanganui."

The method used in Australia to trap rabbits cheaply and in quantity was very simple, he said. Farmers knew that rabbits always went for new grass, and in Australia they enclosed an acre or two with wire netting, not necessarily permanently, just after new grass had been planted. The rabbits were attracted to the new grass, and two or three nights later the gates to the enclosed section were opened. When the rabbits were inside, the gates were shut, and then the farmers went in and killed the trapped animals. He had known 3700 rabbits to be caught in one such trap in one night

He suggested that this system should be used here and the rabbits sent to the thickly-populated centres of the country. It would save the Government its subsidy, would give work to the unemployed, and would reduce the cost of living. Rabbits caught in this way would give the canning industry an opportunity for expansion. Now that England was no longer able to obtain rabbits from the Ostend market, New Zealand rabbits sent Home would be welcome.