POISONING OF OPOSSUMS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22065, 22 September 1933, Page 11

POISONING OF OPOSSUMS

TWO MEN FINED AN IMPORTANT JUDGMENT. (Per United Press Association.) WELLINGTON, September 21. Vivian Leslie M'Ghie and Donald John M'Kenzie were each fined £lO to-day for killing opossums by poison and 234 skins were automatically forfeited. The judgment is important in that the magistrate accepted the evidence of the skins. The skins were from a block of country at the back of Otaki, and the ranger at Palmerston North gave evidence of having closely examined the skins, and found no signs of any snares or traps. He did find five skinned carcasses which bore no sign of limb injuries or flesh lacerations to suggest that the animals had been caught in traps. He found no traps or snares, but found more than 20 baits which, oh being submitted for analysis, were found to consist of some floury substance with which cyanide of potassium had been mixed. A trapper from an adjoining block was called as a witness for the defendants. ' He said that he had found poisoned opossums close to the boundary on defendants’ block and on his own block.

In the course of his judgment, Mr E. Page, S.M., said that an occasional individual skin would be encountered in which indications as to the methods of death were not clear, but taking any line of skins as a whole, the method by which they, had been taken was clear and unmistakable. The proportion of dead or doubtful skins legitimately taken calculated over a period of years was under 2 per cent. During the present season, which was a wet one, out of 20,000 skins which had come to Wellington, 5.7 per cent, were classed as dead or doubtful.