RABBITS

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 19 September 1924, Page 6

RABBITS

NEW ZEALAND’S DANGER

WARNING BY AUSTRALIAN

SOME TALK IN THE TRAIN

It was in. the Thames express yesterday morning, nearing Paerata. Close to the line, on the right-hand side, was some light country, sandy-soil eminences, freely pocked with rabbit warrens and laterally swarming with the rodents. Where there weren’t rabbit burrows there was green grass, but the rabbits had cropped this pretty closely.. •

“Like to get out here with a gun,” observed a young man. “■Would ’you?” inquired an elderly chap. “You’d fire one shot, and you wouldn’t see another rabbit for the rest of the day between here and Mercer. They’re as cunnin’ as the devil. What you want is ferrets—ferrets, that’s what you want, my lad.” “How do they expect the farmers to get rid of the rabbits when they breed all along the railway line and in all the Government reserves?” inquired another. “Look at all these gullies, smothered with fern. The banks are riddled with burrows, and you can dig them out all over the fields and they will come out of the gullies and eat your, grass, and laugh at you while your cows starve. Look at that piece of flat, wet land now. The bunnies won’t burrow there. They’re too cunning. They burrow up where it’s dry and soft digging, and they will come out and feed here. Darned if I know what’s gonna happen the country if they don’t get the rabbits under.” The Emphatic Aussie.

“I know,” declared a long, lean fellow, emphatically. “They’ll well eat you out. I’m an Australian, an’ 1 know. Too right I do. (Needless to say, this was in a smoking carriage.)

All turned to look at the “Aussie” as if. he were something just escaped from the Zoo. They ;have a way in New Zealand of so regarding Australians.

“Yes,” • reiterated the.- Australian. “I know. I’ve lived among the—rabbits;' Seen ’em by the hundreds of millions. Seem ’em eat out paddocks of wheat in a night. If you had alt the rabbits in Australia here they’d chew up New Zealand in a week, trees an’ all. If you don’t get busy and get rid of what you’ve got you’ll be takin’ a runnin’ ; jump at yourself soon. Them rabbits ’ll get your socks. I had a. bit of a sheep fun in the back of New South 'Wales,- air’ they ate me right out of it.”

The- silence of' interest encouraged him to proceed. “Too right I. know;, ’em'. Each female rabbit lias six or eight litters a year of eight, or ten at a. time, and the bunny breeds at eigllt or ten weeks old. A scientist bloke reckons that one pair of rabbits will produce millions in a single year. If a millionaire : rabbit was to die without making a S will and the money had to be divided among his descendants, there wouldn’t be a farthing each for ’em to, collect from the estate.

“An’ it ain’t so much what the rabbit eats as what he destroys. He’ll go through a crop of wheat or oats, nibble at every stem h© passes an’ leave whole yards of it on. 1 the ground. He not only eats an immense amount of grass (I reckon three rabbits ’ll eat as much as one sheep), hut he makes the country in such a mess where he’s thick, with his scratchin’ and burrowin’, that he doesn’t leave much 'space for the grass to grow. He chucks up reg’lar mountains of dirt an’ honeycombs all the ground underneath, so that the surface falls in. If they had the man who brought rabbits to Australia there today, they wouldn’t hurt him a bit— Oh, not on your life, they wouldn’t! “There’s only one really sure thing to kill off the rabbits when they’re really thick, an’ that’s a long ‘drought, an’ you don’t get droughts in New Zealand —you squeal here if you don’t get rain twice a week. I’ve been in parts of Australia where there hasn’t been rain for nine or ten months. Then the grass that the rabbits have left dies, then the cattle -arid sheep die, and then the rabbits die. There’s some consolation in that. .But sooner or later a rabbit an’ his missus’ll come lioppin’ along from somewhere or other, an’ . where there wasn’t a sign of one before that, in a few months there’H be millions. Rabbits have ruined more men in Australia than racehorses, and that’s sayin’ a lot. I’ve seen a fifty-thousand acre station, the whole ground of which seems to be moving, while starving sheep had to stumble their way through the rabbits lookin’ for a blade of grass. “Wliat can you do when the rabbits get. as thick as that? Nothin’ They breed faster than you can kill '’em. You people in New Zealand want to look ahead a hit and think of that. In Australia ' they do all sorts of things to kill off the pest. They imported a bloke named Eodier once. He was going to innoculate them with a disease which would obliterate the whole tribe. He got a disease goin’ among ’em. A few died. Then they , got immunised or something and got bigger and fatter on it an’ ate more grass. Seemed a sort of tonic. This happened with every

new disease Rodier got on to ’em. At last he said he would fix ’em with a disease which would kill anything-, but before he did that the Government shifted him. He might have killed the Government. “Well, we go among" the rabbits with a poison, cart. The cart scratches a trail and drops balls of poisoned pollard. Bunny is very inquisitive. When he sees the earth scratched, he thinks there is a new tribe of rabbits invading his territory an’ he goes in force to investigate. Then he sees the pollard balls and has a taste —an’ the phosphorus in ’em burns his inside out an’ that's, the | end of him. But the worst of it was that the sheep began to fancy the pollard balls, too, and they had to drop this trick. Another way to get ’em was to send a few hundred boys around with tins of jam, mixed with some nice strychnine. The boys used to turn over a clod of earth with a mattock and drop a spoonful of jam on top. Bunny used to hop along and have a lick. One lick was usually enough. But’a few of the. younger kids used to get hold of- the jam sometimes and have a lick too, and what with coroners’ inquests and a lot of other fuss, many people are afraid to lay this bait now. Not that it matters much. As I said, you can’t kill [ ’em (the rabbits, I mean, not the kids), as quick as they breed. But for real good fun an’ the exercisin’ of personal an’ violent revenge on the rabbit, you can’t beat the trick of fencin’ in the dams in dry weather. You put wi v e nettin’ aroun’, leavin’ holes in which the bunnies can get in but can’t get out. Then you jump over that fence in the mornin’ with half a dozen dogs, and with a mattock-handle in your hands and you get to business. I’ve seen ’em that thick inside the fence that you couldn’t walk without treadin’ on ’em. It’s a treat to hear them, scrunch —my oath! The best trap is the pit trap. In bad rabbit country they have ’em every few hundred yards along the wirenettin’ fences. Bunny joves to travel up an’ down the fences

at night, seein’ if he can’tiget in next door for. a change of scratchin’ and he is shepherded on to a narrow track by wings of nettin’ run out on either side of the trap. As he goes to cross the track, a balanced hoard tumbles him into the trap. I have gone along mornin’ after mornin' and found the trap so,full that the hoard was jammed and hundreds of rabbits smothered under the live ones on top. You just pick ein’ up by the loins, one by one, and smack ’em over the back of the nock ivith the- killer—a short, round bit of wood. I’ve got thousands a day like that. Another way ” •1 ust then the train drew up at a station. “Well, so long, you chaps,” said the long Australian. “I get out here; hut don’t you forget, if you don’t get rid .of those rabbits they’ll chew New Zealand right up.” They waited until he had stalked off the platform. “I think he’s a liar,” said one. “They all are, those Aussies.” ‘Don’t you think it for a moment,” said another, “I have been in the back country in Australia. He may have exaggerated a bit, but there is a lot of truth in what’ he says, and a lot of sense in what- he advises.”