RABBITSKIN INDUSTRY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21859, 23 July 1934, Page 12

RABBITSKIN INDUSTRY

Sir, —"Constructive's" letter on rabbits in Thursday's Herald is worthy of consideration. Rabbits are flourishing to such an extent in tho rural districts that they are expanding into the towns, and any morning they can bo seen on tho riverbank reserve and in Alexandra and Anglesea Streets, Hamilton. The Gordonton and Orini districts will soon be overrun with them, like the Cambridge district, and trappers are not encouraged to participate in their destruction. For a short period the Government offered to subsidise farmers toward encouraging rabbiters to trap and poison, but to get tho subsidy there was such an amount of red tape to get through that few farmers bothered with it, and preferred to put up with the rabbit. Tho few who applied for tho' assistance had to bo led up to the Government bureau by the rabbiters to sign tho papers, and then they had hardly started to function when tho subsidy was withdrawn. The average price paid by buyers is about 7d per pair (skins and carcases), but when cartage to the rail is deducted and railage to Auckland (about 5s per night's catch) is taken into consideration, imagine how much would bo left for tlie trapper to tide him over a month of such weather as we have experienced recently. I know some trappers who got credit for only about 50 per cent of their catches, the others being condemned. The Auckland merchants receive rabbits on only three or four days per week, and if a rabbitcr has to knock off work and sit around for three days a week, one can imagine him very soon wearying of tho job. While the subsidy was in vogue a I'ow young men were encouraged to buy traps and try their luck at trapping, but they had no sooner started than they were told that the subsidy was ceasing, and, of course, they had to cease, too. The rabbit trapper, to do his job successfully, has to work longer hours and harder than any coal miner, goldminer, farmer or bushman, but there is a fascination about tho work which would draw many men to it if thoy were given a "fair go." Occasionally one will see some press comment about the substantial price being given for skins by American buyers, but this applies only to about 2 per cent of the North Island pelts, the rest averaging about 3d each. Buck.