£719 TO KILL 14 MUSKRATS

Greymouth Evening Star, 22 March 1935, Page 5

£719 TO KILL 14 MUSKRATS

’ & A COSTLY CAMPAIGN

SHREWSBURY, January 20.

The Shropshire Agricultural Committee of the County Council have been sharply criticised for the costliness of the campaign waged for more than two years against muskrats. Figures for the past quarter are likely to evoke fresh criticism. The number of adult muskrats caught and killed was only 14, and the accounts amounted to £719. For the quarter ending May the committee estimate the expenditure at £6O2 —a decrease to be effected by the reduction in the number of trappers from 40 to 10. The official attitude is that while the war of extermination, necessitating the engagement of Canadian trappers, has admittedly been expensive, it had to be waged. In all nearly 3,000 muskrats have been destroyed since operations began in May, 1932, and had these lived to multiply at the usual rate the country would have been overrun, witii most, serious consequences. The mischief began with the establishment for commercial purposes of a muskrat farm on the banks of the Severn a few miles above Shrewsbury more than three years ago. file tats were enclosed, of course, but it was soon realised that no wire netting or other barrier could confine those destructive rodents. In less than a year they had got up the river beyond Welshpool and below as far as Bewdley. ~ . While the damage actually done in farmyards and vegetable gardens may not have been great, it was early recognised by riparian owners that the tunnelling operations of muskrats was likelv to lead to river banks being swept away by floods and the submergence of valuable meadow land. Thai danger is now considered to have been averted, but the necessity for continued vigilance is fully realised.