THE RABBIT QUESTION.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLII, Issue 129, 2 June 1908, Page 3

THE RABBIT QUESTION.

POISONING OR TRAPPING.

Some views on the present position of the rabbit nuisance in New Zealand, and the possibilities of "bunny" ks a commercial asset, were expressed by Mr E. Clifton, chief inspector of the Department or Agriculture, in the course of a conversation with a press representative at Auckland. [ '-The present position ? ".Mr Clifton said; "is this: The rabbit nuisance is in the greatest evidence in districts where trapping is prevalent. What the farmer nas to- realise is that sheep, cattle, and rabbits live on grass, and he must consider which is the most profitable." As to the attitude of the Department, he said that it required hat the rabbits should be kept down. Poisoning was preferred by the Department, because presumably it destroyed more rabbits, but so long as the numbers / were reduced the Department did not care what means were adopted to secure that end. It was not a fact that rabbits would take poison only when no other food was available. When poison was carefully laid the rabbits would, take it even when there was other food about. It was not true, he said, that the l&rge runholders in *the South allowed tVappers on their estates, and the great bulk of the rabbits for freezing were coming from the semi-agricultural and semi-grazing farms of from, say, 1500 to 2000 acres. He recounted what had occurred 'in the Marlborpugh, Wairarapa, and Hawke's Bay districts as showing,the good work accomplished by poisoning. As to the argument that poisoning was not likely to be successful in the Auckland province , owing to the luxuriant growth of grass, Mr Clifton said it would be generally' admitted that HawkeY-Bay was equal in grassproducing to the Auckland district 1, and yet poisoning had proved to be most effective in the former district. Another aspect was the greater probability of rabbits being moved from place to place by human agency should the freezing of them be largely entered into. "That the rabbit has already been transported from place to place," he said, "is indisputable, and how much more likely is this to be the case if rabbits are made the object ofV profit? It is really for those who contemplate raising them for freezing purposes to consider which will pay best—the rabbits or sheep and cattle —and it may be submitted that sheep and cattle are the better investment.'