THE RABBIT PEST.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 858, 10 August 1888, Page 14

THE RABBIT PEST.

REPORT OF JOINT COMMITTEE

The following is the report of the Joint. Committee upon the rabbit pest, which was presented to Parliament; on Tuesday ; The Joint Committee appointed to inquire into the best means of dealing with the rabbit pest lias tl)e honour to report that it has taken a good deal of evidence and received much interesting information oq tlie subject referred to it. It notes with alarm that 12,743,452 rabbit siting have been exported from the Cqlqny during the last year, being an increase an thq export of the preyiqus year of 4,197,198. The evidence before the Committee is, in fact, conclusive that the Sheep Department has hitherto proved altogether incapable of arresting the spread of this scourge over an annually increasing area ; and that, therefore, the enormous loss to the Colony is steadily increasing year by year. The South Otago and Wairarapa districts, however, offer a pleasing exception to this dismal picture, the rabbits in that locality having been reduced during (she last three o,r four years to comparatively moderate numbers. The principal means by which such a result hag been accomplished are the liberation and encouragement of tlie various natural enemies of the rabbit, together with heavy poisonings in the winter. The rabbit agents have also insisted upon continuous destruction being carried on during the summer breeding season, and failure in this respect has been frequently visited by hqavy fines. The bladderworm mentioned in the evidence of Mr Coleman Phillips has also, probably in a minor degree, assisted in diminishing tlie pest in a portion of the Wairarapa district. This is one of the diseases which is being investigated by ProfessorThomas, who has already made an interim report thereon. Until that gentleman lias completed his investigations the Committee do not consider it desirable to make any recommendation regarding it. Factories for tinning rabbits have been Started, and promise, as far as the factories are concerned, to be successful as a commercial undertaking, a good demand existing for the product at a remunerative rate. As long as rabbits exist in their present numbers there will.be little difficulty in keeping these establishments supplied, but should the supplies fall off, as they will do if the provisions of the Rabbit Act are rigorously enforced, there is a danger that rabbit farming may be

undertaken as a business, and lands occupied with that object, in which the animals are allowed to increase unmolested. The Committee are of opinion that this should be strictly prohibited. It is, however, questionable whether any means have yet been available by which the pest can be effectively dealt with in the poorer and more mountainous districts, except at a cost beyond the small returns available from such country ; and the Committee is, therefore, greatly disappointed that no report has yet been received from the Sydney Conference appointed to inquire into the various methods of rabbit destruction. The Committee has strong hopes that the investigations now being conducted in Australia, under the auspices of Pasteur’s agents and others, may yet yield satisfactory results to this and the other colonies. As the employment of men with dogs, traps, and guns has been found to render the liberating of the natural enemy useless on account of the numbers they destroy, the inspectors should have discretionary power to prevent such means being used wherever the natural enemy has been fairly established, the use of steel traps being particularly objectionable. So far the laying of poisoned grain in winter, and the turning out of the natural enemies, remain unquestionably the best means than can be. adopted, and your Committee recommend that the several inspectors be instructed to enforce the former with great strictness, and to encourage the latter as much as in their power, and that the inspectors he empowered to continue the purchase and liberating on Government land of ferrets, stoats and weasels—pieferably the two latter —in as large numbers as possible. The Committee recommend tliat the Babbit Act should he amended in order to provide that imprisonment should be an alternative penalty for removing live rabbits from one locality to another, and that rewards should be offered for information that will insure conviction for such offence.

In the South Island the wire-netting fence from the sea to Lake Tennyson is nearly completed. It ought to have been completed sooner, as the rabbits are advancing very rapidly towards it, and some have actually crossed the Upper Clarence, along the South bank of which river the fence is being erected. Men have been engaged by the Hurunui Rabbit Board to watch this point; but the Board-coni: plains that the only step taken by the Amuri Rabbit Board has been to turn out natural enemies. They consider that the country ought to have been poisoned, The fencing that was imported for South Canterbury has been nearly all erected ; but to complete it to tlie Waitaki will require about forty-five miles additional fencing, and this the Committee recommend to be undertaken forthwith on condition that the distriot benefited by such fence shall bear half its cost. Officers in charge of districts should have the appointment and dismissal of their rabbit agents entirely ip their own hands, and should be held strictly accountable for the condition of their respective districts. It i’s evident to the Committee that the Stock Branch, instead of holding a position commensurate with its paramount importance, has hitherto been looked upon by each successive Minister as a disagreeable branch of his department, from which neither honour nor credit is to be derived, and that very little, improvement cap be hoped for until Parliament itself compels a very different attitude. Mathew Holmes, Chairman. 7th Apgust. Tq tips report the following protest was appended We, members of the Joint Comipittee op the rabbit pest, dissent from the report cj the Committee, for the following reasons : We protest against a further outlay of public money on ’the erection of 45 miles of rabbit-proof fencing from the Waitaki toward Lake Tekapo, because we have reason to believe that rabbits are now on both sides of the line of the proposed fence, and that the fence, though it might retard, would not stop the advance of the. rabbits ; for. ql' though ip the lqw country through ‘w)pch it is proposed to/rpn' tlie feiice it with careful daily inspection,, sfqp, tlqeiif foy a time, yet at watercourse's and qn the high and rough country qn the line which is subject to! heavy snowstorms, no practicable amount of vigilance could maintain the fence in a condition such as would permanently stop their advance. We do not think that the Committee is justified ip recommending that the Colony should, at the present time, incur the very considerable expense of a work the effective value qf which for the purpose intended is very doubtful to. say the least. Mathew Holmes, CUTHBERT Co, WAN, Thomas Duncan, W. C. Buchanan, 7tli August, 1888,