RABBIT DISEASE REPORT INCORRECT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 4417, 10 November 1934, Page 3

RABBIT DISEASE REPORT INCORRECT.

OCCURRED THIRTY YEARS AGO. At last month’s meeting of the Manawatu Rabbit Board, the Chairman (Trustee B. G. Gower) produced a clipping from a newspaper referring 'to a report made at a meeting of the Canterbury Farmers Union to the effect that a disease was causing great mortality amongst the rabbits in that- part of the Dominion. Members expressed interest in the report and it was decided that the Union be communicated with to ascertain additional particulars with a view to the possibility of introducing the disease into the rabbits of the Manawatu district.

At Thursday’s meeting of the Board, however, a letter was read from the Canterbury Union, in reply to the Board’s communication, stating that the report was quite incorrect. The Union was interested in certain experiments .at present being carried out in Australia in connection with rabbit destruction by the introduction of disease, and in the course of a discussion at the meeting it had been mentioned that a disease had broken out amongst the rabbits of the Marlborough district until great mortality—but some thirty years ago. Trustee Grammer: Too good to be true!

The South Island body concluded by promising to forward to the Board a report as to the success or otherwise of the Australian project, for which it was accorded the thanks of the Board.