RABBIT PEST.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19048, 19 December 1923, Page 8

RABBIT PEST.

COST TO AUSTRALIA. iFnou Oue Own Cokeespondekt.l SYDNEY, December 6. That the rabbit-is a plague and should be treated as such is beyond question. It is estimated that every seven to 10 rabbits consume feed which would maintain one sheep, the annual equivalent to-day of 10a additional wealth, plus its share of increased trade and labour. A writer in the press, pointing to the extraordinary deprecations of rabbits in New South Wales, states that to encourage men to make good money in trapping for skins or carcases, far from lessening the economic evil, is to make an industry of something that is a dangerous cancer on Australia’s greatest, industry, a hat the rabbit is a costly pest is seen from the amazing figures which the writer quotes. Up to June last in New South Wales 114-.944 miles o.f rabbit fencing had been erected at a cost of £6,763.747, Of this, private enterprise has been responsible tor 112,876 miles at the huge outlay of x/b,665.000. This works out at an average of about £59 per mile. Nine-tenths of the fence was erected before the war. To-day the same mileage wuokl probably cost well over £10,000,000. This, however, is not all. To dig out and destroy in infested country entails a further outlay of 5s to 7s 6d per acre, and, where the land has had to be dug over again, the cost often rung into 10s an acre. It is said to be a common thing to see trappers, whose capital is represented by a few dozen traps, earning more money in catching rabbits than the landowner himself makes from his sheep on the same land.