OPOSSUM POISONING.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 252, 21 September 1933, Page 2

OPOSSUM POISONING.

CASE AT WELLINGTON. Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, Sept. 21. Vivian Leslie McGhie and Donald John McKenzie were each fined £lO today for killing opossums by poison and 234 skins were automatically forfeited. The judgment is important in that the Magistrate accepted the evidence of the skins. The skins were from a block of country at the back of Otaki and the ranger at Palmerston North (Mr T. Andrews) gave evidence of closely examining the skins. He found no signs of any snares or traps. He did find five skinned carcases which bore no sign of limb injuries or flesh lacerations to suggest that they had been caught in traps. He' found no traps or snares, but did find more than twenty baits, which, on being submitted for analysis, were found to consist of some floury substance with which had been mixed cyanide of potassium. A trapper from an adjoining block, called as witness for the defendants, gave evidence that he found poisoned opossums close to the boundary . on defendants’ block and on liis own block. In tire course of his judgment, Mr E. Page, S.M., said an occasional individual skin would be encountered in which the indications as to the methods of death were not clear but, taking any line of skins as a whole, the method by which they had been taken was clear and unmistakable. The proportion of dead ox doubtful skins legitimately taken, calculated over a period of years, was under 2 per cent. During the present season, which was a wet one, out of the 20,000 skins which came to "Wellington 5.7 per cent, were classed as dead or doubtful.