THE GRAZIER.

Otago Witness, Issue 1602, 5 August 1882, Page 8

THE GRAZIER.

THE BABBIT QJUSTION.

The rabbit question seem a to be as hard a nut to crack as the laud question ; but wo do not think the squatter element which Mr PRiNGiiE F. Stoddart endeavours to import into it constitutes much of the difficulty. The whole difficulty, in fact, consists in finding out the most effectual means of mastering this the worst pest with which the Colony has yet been afflicted. Dogs and guns are of comparatively little avail ; poison is efficient to a certain extent, but despite Mr £todt> art's strong assertion, it is doubtful if it would in the long run serve the purpose of keeping the pest sufficiently under control ; it is, at any rate, quite clear that we cannot exterminate tho rabbits by this means, 30 that we should have to go on poisoning, either constantly or periodically, for ever and a y e a very uncomfortable outlook. In B'ich circumstances it is little wonder if the squatters, who are the direct sufferers, should cast about to find some more effectual niethud of dealing with the evil. To import the natural enemies of the rabbit was the advice given by many discerning persons long ago ; but some ardent members of the acclimatisation societies were, of course, horriiied at the thought of introducing vermin, which were, so to speak, their natural enemies also, and ought therefore, in their view, to be denied a footing in the Colony. The acclimatisers, in the interest of their pheasants, Californian quail, and other imported game, actually got a prohibition to this effect placed upon the Statute- book ; and now these pheasants and quail are being poisoned off the face of the country ! The matter is thus bs broad as it is long, so far as the acclimatisation societies are concerned. The vermin, at the very name of which Mr Stoddart's bile seems to rise, have no doubt, like a good many human beings, a partiality for game; but pheasants, ■quail, &c. have unfortunately a partiality for wheat, and the stupid creatures do not seem to know when it has been steeped in poison. Our own opinion is that they would stand a better chance with the ferrets, stoats, and weasels than they do with the poisoned wheat. It is just possible they might in time bo educated to spy death in the , tempting grain, and though we have our doubts on the subject, there could be no harm in making the experiment. Let Mr Stoddabt and Mr A. 0. Begs, for instance, open a school for young pheasants in the Acclimatisation grounds, and devote two or three hours a week to the congenial task of training them up in what they should swallow, so that when they are old they may not only save their own lives fpv the sportsman's gun, but teach their relations and congeners to the fortieth degree to' do the same. It is hardly possible to be serious on such a ■ subject. The loss of every head of game j in th« country would be a cheap price indeed to pay for clearing the land of rabbits We couU live very well without the former, but we really cannot live with the latter ; and wo are somewhat astonished that Mr Stoddart should try to raise a false is-:ue in bo important a matter. We have no more interest in the squatters than we have in any other class of th<> community ; but as long aa wool forms our most valuable export it needs no great discernment to see that the prosperity of the squatters is to a certain extent identical with the prosperity of the Colony. The loss which the people of New Zealand sustain every year through the depredations of the rabbits is simply enormous, and no such consideration as that of game-preserving ought to be allowed for a moment to interfere with any likely method of staying the plague. It can hardly be said, indeed, that the weaael experiment has yet been proved a complete success ; the evidence in iis favour, however, increases day by day, and we think it ought to have a fair trial. As we said on a former occasion, some more subtle and constant agency is required than any we have yot discovered unless, of course, the little creatures which gamekeepers call vermin, but which serve as useful a purpose in the economy of Nature as hares and pheasants, should prove to be thai, very agency. Mr Stoddart thinks it strange that "Mr J. M. Kitchie and other parties should wis'i to introduce into New Z« aland vermin which every other country tries io destroy." We should have thought there was nothing at all strange in tho matter — the reason is so obvious. Neither is it the case that every • other country tries to destroy these socalled vermin. It is only selfish game preservers, fur-hunters, and other people who disturb the order and destroy the balance of Nature, that try to destroy them ; and we are thoroughly convinced that the sooner they are introduced into New Zealand the better— notwithstanding the dreadful prediction in the concludiuy paragraph of Mr Stoddart's letter.