MENACE TO GRAZIERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21224, 2 July 1932, Page 7

MENACE TO GRAZIERS.

RABBITS IN AUSTRALIA.

DAMAGE TO PASTURES. EFFECT ON SHEEP INDUSTRY. [FROM OUR OWN CO Ti respondent.] SYDNEY, June 24. In the Federal Arbitration Court the other day someone asked who it was who introduced rabbits to Australia. No one could supply the information, but a representative of the graziers sr<id that if he were alive to-day ho was certain that be would be murdered. The fact thai there are 6.000.000 rabbit carcases in cold storage awaiting shipment from Sydney to London might suggest that the rabbit was doing his bit for Australia, but the damage done by rabbits oach year is far greater than the value of the export trade. Australia is the greatest wool and sheep country in the world, and it can also claim the honour, or dishonour, of running more rabbits than all the other countries put- together. The sheep and wool industries bring in millions a year, but rabbits rob those basic industries of tens of thousands. They have developed into Australia's greatest pest. If there were no rabbits in New South Wales graziers could run thousands more sheep ."than they do. Consumption of Grass. Jn some quarters it is asserted that without rabbits there would bo room for 10,000,000 more sheep. One of the greatest sheep-raisers said the oilier day that by ridding his property oZ rabbits he doubled its sheep-carrying capacity. He rin 20.000 sheep with rabbits and 40,000 without rabbits. Years ago it was stated, as the result of an experiment in Victoria, that eight rabbits eat as much grass as one sheep. That estimate is generally accepted. On that basis the 6,000,000 rabbits in cold store in Sydney were sufficient, to prevent 750,000 sheep from growing wool and fattening. Values for rabbits and for every other kind of meat are exceedingly low. The average f.o.b. pi ice of frozen rabbit for export is about 4d to each, and the trappers get from 2d to each. The following comparison may be made: — Eight rabbits can be run where one sheep is run. As meat and fur the rabbits are worth on board ship for export 2s 8d to 3s. A sheep, in its full coat, is good, in wool and mutton, for 14s to 16s. Waste of Good Food. It is not only the grass the rabbit eats that earns it tho undying enmity of the good stockowner. Tho rabbit wastes as much as ho cats and "fouls" the pastures. It is said that cattle will never do well where rabbits are plentiful. Fattening of stock is certainly a slower, if riot impossible, task. When the feed is short rabbits pull it up by tho roots, and this increases tiie risk of starvation for Ihe stock. To-day the countryside is said to be more gravely menaced by rabbits than in any period for the last 20 or 30 years.

Graziers are fully alive to the position, but they seem powerless to do anything. Wave after wave of rabbits lias been "coming in" and still there is.no really satisfactory method of dealing with the pest. The expense of freeing a single property is enormous under existing methods and few owners can face it.