SOMETHING ABOUT RABBITS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XVII, Issue 5306, 21 June 1892, Page 4

SOMETHING ABOUT RABBITS.

TO THE EDITOR.

Sik, —I have for sr.me time thought of writing something to you about the rabbit question. Your recent paragraph reminded me of a promise I gave several months since, and refreshed my memory on some of its many phases. Opinions, I find, differ veiy materially on the best means of keeping the pest in check. That they will never be wholly extirpated I think is generally admitted, and there are not a few who are strongly of opinion that were it possible it is not desirable, for several reasons , the chief being that they feed only partially on food used by .sheep, etc., and afford in their destruction a vast amount of labor. Nearly every boy in the country district wages continual war against the active little animal, in very many cases for food purposes, and they form no mean help in many a household, prepared in various ways, in supplying the table with acceptable and nutritious dishes. They are valuable also for their skins, and when I tell you of one instance of a boy, in his spare hours from school, etc., getting, with his two or three dogs, an average of 100 skins a month, from a limited area, the juvenile part of the question is by no means insignificant, either as a factor in bunny's destruction or as a means of winning the wherewithal for boots and breeches for themselves. One aspect, however, presents itself to my mind that seems fraught with serious possibilities to the juvenile mind and character —the possibility of insensibility to pain and suffering being created and perpetuated as well as hardness ;it sight, of of death growing to a cruel and inhuman pleasure at sight of pain inflicted, and death. Surely there lies herein a danger of destroying the finer feelings of our youth. Still the rabbit must be destroyed, though our youth become ruffianised, and so long as it is pro fitable, destruction is likely to continue. The annual poisoning in winter is. no doubt, one of the most successful modes of dealing with the plague, though some argue that it is a wicked and wasteful mode. As an article of food, this involves a total loss, of course and in some countries a great part of tliv, skins of the slaughtered thousands are also lost, as the rabbits die where they are no or again seen —in their various hiding places, niich as scrub, crabholes, or u'.der runners, in burrows, under locks, and on the goldfields —in the old workings. Nevertheless. there can, I think, be no doubt as to the value of poisoning—if well performed, and circumstances lie favorable at the time—as a wholesale and decidedly effective check. To any observant resident in the country this is very apparent after the poisoning season is past, but tt> reap the full benefit of this process it needs to be followed up by more ellective means or the means adopted need to be very much more vigorously carried out. Shooting, hunting, and trapping are the chosen supplementary aids adopted, some using all, others choosing one or more of these, with more or less vigor, and just here comes in a great difficulty of successfully coping with the nuisance. There is observable a decided lack of unity on the part of the persons interested, which involves also a lack of honesty, for if one or more neglect to follow up the advantage gained by the winter raid, it means that The negligent ones breed to destroy their neighbors crops, as well as to increase to him the cost of keeping the rabbit in check. I would advocate very stringent and severe measures with any who are guilty of such neglect, but great care should be taken lest injustice be done. How this is to be effect ed is, as I think, amongst, the most difficult problems rabbit inspectors have to solve. I believe the administration of the rabbit Act will have to be in other hands ere the work is done to the greatest advantage. and with the greatest equity —in those of local bodies I would say. I do not sue how one man, be he never so energetic and honest in his intentions, can do justice to his work over so large an area as is usually put under his control. In •support of my contention, I will cite a few instances* that have come under my personal knowledge. One instance I noted up the Waitaki, where a run had been subdivided. The road was the boundary between the two occupiers. Oil one" side I saw rabbits in scores—no exaggeration ; 011 the other not one. The latter runliolder had been twice prosecuted and fined—the other not once. I made inquiries, and found the latter (the one who had not been fined) was then employing occasionally two or three buys over an area 12 times the extent of his neighbor's holding, and the other was occupied, together with a boy, two-thirds of his time in destroying the rabbits. In another instance, in the same county, where the rabbits had been very markedly neglected for from two to three years, the owner was fined a trifling amount, ridiculously insufficient to meet the case. The rabbits were still neglected, and the aid of the law was again invoked. It is said that the person chiefly interested fully expected a fine of LSO ; and such is the uncertainty of the law or the failure of the administrator to grasp the situation that again a fine of only a few pounds was inflicted, when L2OO or L-'jOO—if the law allowed—would have onlv reasonably met the case. Yet another casi* is that of two holders whose properties are near each other. In the one case the land has been thoroughly cleaned four times in the year ; the neighbor has emploved a lad* shooting for two or three weeks only during the year. I would think it scarcely possible, were the work entrusted to the local body, that such a state" of things could exist. That the methods now adopted can be very greatly improved upon is the linn opinion of many. Some incline to one, some to another. I know of one who, on my last visit, was paying a good deal of attention to the breeding anil rearing of cats, to be turned out to prey on the rabbits. and with great hopes of success, but this idea has serious drawback ; rabbiters' doijs hunt them just .as freely and energetically as rabbits, then at the poisoning time they eat the carcases nf the poisoned rabbits. I have known of several domestic cats being so destroved. Again, the cats are not acclimatised to life in the hills. Some runliolders are, and have long been, breeding ferrets to be tinned out to prey on bunny, and the .Rabbit Department have a ferretbreeding establishment at Kurow. With respect to this idea there are several fatal object inns. I kno.v of sevenil undoubted instances of ferrets and rabbits fateruising in the same burrow proving the reasonableness of the doubt if they will and take to the work -when bred in confinement. Ferrets also hunt for food rather than to destroy, and. not being an acclimatised animal, do not take to the hills, but are frequently caught near to settlements They are very destructive to poultry, preferring birds to rabbits. Others are greatly in favor of importing and turning out stoats and weasels. Much may be said in favor of this idea, as your paragraph. to which reference has already been Tnade, says. They are said to differ in a marked degree from their congener the ferret especially in that they avoid human beings and their habitations. They hunt* for blood rather than for meat. Blood is said to be indispensible to them, and their nature is to destroy. They are natives of a country and climate similar to New Zealand, and would probably take to the back country, and do good and efl'ecive work where the rabbit is most difficult to get at. I think I have now reviewed most, if not .all, the present and some of the proposed methods, and am fully convinced that for all of that part of the country suitable for closer settlement, closer settlement is far

and away tlie best method of coping, with the lively little " cuss" ; and herein great praise is due to the jYlinister of Lands for his vigorous attempt to settle the people on the lands, for by he is doing two decidedly good things at once, rarely possible of accomplishment, viz., putting the land to a more profitable use, and solving the rabbit problem. May he go on and prosper. I am, etc., Observer.