WILD PIGS

Greymouth Evening Star, 29 September 1928, Page 5

WILD PIGS

KILLED BY THOUSANDS. Every year through the State Forestry Department, the Government allocates a certain sum of money for the purpose of aiding the extermination of wild pigs, which in some districts in New Zealand have become so numerous as to constitute a distinct menace. This year the Palmerston North branch of the Forestry Department will pay out £350 for wild pig snouts 'obtained in the district under its jurisdiction. A reporter was informed yesterday that £332 has already been paid at the rate of one shilling per snout.

The Palmerston North officers have been paying for snouts since the beginning of July, and will cease to do so when the total amount of the collection has been used up. Some £3O of the grant has been paid away in advertising expenses, etc., leaving about £3oo—or a total of approximately 6000 pigs killed during the past ten weeks.

The majority of the snouts delivered at the Palmerston North office are obtained in the Wanganui River district and the central Taranaki, where the wild pigs are so numerous that farmers are compelled to wage warfare against them in self-protection. For the past two years the Department has paid out only on snouts certified to have been obtained since July 1 of each season. This restriction has considerably reduced the numbex* of sent in for payment, but it has prevented the hunters hoarding their “scalps.” The somewhat unsavoury work of counting the trophies of the chase falls upon the officers of the Forestry Department who remove them with all speed to the most distant portion of the building, there to await burial.