THE WEASEL.
TO THK EDITOR. Sir. —Your correspondent " Nature" is deserving of thanks for reminding the public of the vieiousuess of these pests. As long ago as 1891, when reading before th? (Jingo Institute u paper on the exterrniiiation of birds by the imported mustelida;, with ;i view to inducing that body to move the Government to set apart island sanctuaries for our wingless fauna (as reported in your journal of August 12, 1891), I quoted 'Knight's Natural History' in evidence of *V danger to human, beings, to which your correspondent calls attention, and instanced local cases of attacks by weasels on children <ind on men in the Fiord district.
Your correspondent will permit me, to correct him on ono point. It was not the Acclimatisation Society who introduced the rabbit and the weasel. The rabbit was privately introduced into Southland, and a Provincial Council Act making it a penal offence to shoot one is said to remain unrepealed. The stoat, weasel, and polecat were imported by the Government to exterminate the rabbit. It was said they ordered ferrets only, but the contractors < in England sent out an assortment of what- - ever was most easy to catch. Had the Government agent seen to it that ferrets only wore despatched, not much harm would have resulted—certainly no danger to life. The ferret is not vicious unless irritated. He also objects to cold, and likes to keep hia feet dry, and would never have marchad through the deep wet moss of West Coast foresta from civilisation to the sea. The stoat, weasel, and polecat aro of different habit, They are naturally ferocious, killing for the- sake of killing. They are also climbers (which the ferret is not), and care nothing for cold or wet. In four years from the time they were turned out
they had penetrated to tho Sounds and In wast below llckitika, and .exterminated the weka, kiwi, kakano, and blua due* over large areas. . v .,ndeiit rightly characterises th;< mticductit'ju of the mireoUaneovK muotelidie as " itusnsatu folly."—I am, etc., JAJIICS HICUAUDSOU. March 4.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ESD19100304.2.79.2
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Evening Star, Issue 14307, 4 March 1910, Page 7
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344THE WEASEL. Evening Star, Issue 14307, 4 March 1910, Page 7
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