THE NEW ZEALAND RABBIT AND ITS PREY.

Otago Witness, Issue 1874, 21 October 1887, Page 9

THE NEW ZEALAND RABBIT AND ITS PREY.

Tb i ß is the title of an extremely interesting h-ochure published by a Southland settler, who hides his identity under the initials " A.0." The winpblet appears to have been issued with three P biects in view— namely, advocating the merits of wire nettiug as a means of coping with the . b t showing the utility of cats in the destruction'of rabbits, and producing evidence of the elessnehs of introducing natural enemies such the' weasel, stoat, ferret, &c. All the present ,ractisecJ methods of dea'ing with the pest * ruthlessly condemned as inadequate, while "very strong bill is certainly made out against the natural enemies. Iv view ot the importance o f the subject we offer no apology for making copious extracts from the little work. HoiV the Writer's Eyes were opened. „At fi rs t I reported favourably on the digging ou t process, then I thought 'dogs were the tbiugs>' but P resenfclv 1 &' ofc a moßfc violenfc reactionary fit against dogs, and I pinned my f ith on traps. I even went out and set 100 traps myself, mostly in holes. I caught three rabbits, nine rats, the house cat, and an idea— a sudden awakening to the fact that bunny was not the innocent creature I had always taken him to be. ' Why,' said (to my man Tim, i they don't seem to live in the holes/ • No,' said h* » the burrow is only a refuge from men and aZs, and may be trom snow.' ' And they seem,' said I, 'to know what a trap is/ • 0 vc6 if they can see it. I have been amongst the rabbits all my life, and they often surprise me, even now. ii There was a revelation ! I often heard of such things before, but never felt their force until I caught that idea. I soon lost faith in the traps, and started a lot of men to shoot them a t 4d a tail. Then the gullies resounded with fusillading from morn till night, and on a calm evening a smoke hung round the brows of the hills. The rabbits got thinner of course, so did the grass. and 80 (licl tne siiee P- n ' s * f ounrl s0 awfully expensive and unsatisfactory that I hailed the poisoned grain with delight. I proved to my own satisfaction and to the satisfaction of a purchaser, that bunny was 'off this time/ Then I spent such a happy year, until my evil genius and its apparent cheapness tempted me to invest in my old place again, and, as I said, I put ray finger in it, for I never could muster my fcheep afterwards, and things went from bad to worse. I found that the poison was only effective while my sheep were starving ; that the rabbits scorned it while my sheep were thriving, and lhat the export of frozen meat had not raised the price in New Zealand. I found that where only one rabbit was suspected there was likely to be 50 ; and that when I imagined I was only losing a few pounds, I was losing as many hundreds. " I invested in exterminating machines that (•oon exterminated my patience. I went down to the men that were working them:— 'Well, Hob,' said I, * how are you getting on ?' 'O, all right.' 'Are you killing many?' 'Don't think it.' 'How is that?' I asked. 'Because they are not in/ 'And what in the name of fury are you blowing up an empty hole for?' ' Well, sir,' said ho, ' you told us to do them all in the face.' ' And where are the rabbits ? ' I asked. ' Away in the tussocks, or anywhere except where we want them.' The Knowlngiicss of Rabbits. A reason for the failure of ferrets and fumigating is pointed out. " Tim says ho has often felt loose earth in the ends of a burrow where it is usually hard, and often lost a rabbit in a hole, where she had firmly stopped herself in with fivo or mx inches of firmly stopped earth, through which the dogs lost scent." Thirteen rabbits were dug out of a deep hole under such circumstances in one instance and four in another. " Even a young rabbit knows what a trap i*, and the setting of a trap that would (li'ceive some rabbits would deceive a man." The writer asserts that in choosing sites for tlii'ir nests iv his district last year the rabbits *o(.m to have taken into account the presence of ferrets, and to have known something of their habits, for nearly all the nests were out on nsbaro ground as possible. It appears that a ferret has a great dislike to go out on bare phces, but prefers keeping among scrub or tussock", and along creek banks and fences. As a result of this irunrcuvre, the rabbitcr mentioned nbove says that, though he caught 1500 young übbits during the season, he only got two or three litters that had been killed by ferrets. Of i curse there were ouly a few ferrets on the breeding ground. 'Che migratory habits of rabbits are dealt with at some length, the contention being that they have three migratory periods iv the year: — " First, the does are off in search of the best quarters they can find for their young, in this they will swim rivers like rats ; second, in March "ill April the young ones stampede anywhere tw pure flashness ; and third, when food is scarce, « whole comrannity of them seem to bo able to N»»t their quest at great distances, and will be there if possible. About their swimming, you know that I have often cleaned the long island in Hoods, yet they are back again although they have 30 yards to swim, for they could not swim at the fords " Their destructiveness in native pastures is thus explained :— " Yes, they nip the seedlings a t the earliest possible moment, when you would require spectacles to see the result of their mischievous work; they eat the crowns of native grass that cannot stand it, and even their excretmn seems to kill some of the strongest of our grasses. You see, in Old New Zealand there Wti re no grass-eaters save kakapos, and may be, moas; unlike Australia or any othp.r country, the grass was developed under conditions directly opposite to what we wanted, and when we know the severity and apparent wantonness of the rabbit wo need not wonder at the dissolving profits from our pastures." The Value of Cats as Hunters. J» discussing the question with Tim, the writer asks, « • And what is to keep them in check, if f erre t s won't?' « Cats,' he promptly answered. 'You may have noticed how the Übbits feed at the doorstep, and leave traces *«?»n a few feet of the dog chain, showing jbeir weak point in their boldness, just what 'Qe cat is able to take advantage of by lying in * a «- And I have no doubt but that if we «new their history far enough back, we would n "u that the cat and the rabbit came from the same place.' „ "ell, Tim, that is a queer commentary on «c present importation of 3000 stoats tha,t may ™s- the Government £2 a head to land. I cantl ° ' a gree with you, however, when you say w« a ferret-, does kill a rabbit a month, because * O'ten found rabbits out ou the run that had !J«j killed by ferrets/ ' I have often found jowl rabbits, 1 sa \s TitTl) • but very few have i round that had beeu killed by ferrets. A wet invariably injures the skull just above the .i<Mu a manner that no cat cau imitate; and i you . Pay attention to this you can f » identify who killed it. Whea a ferret 2* rabbit [t lxlmi y s drags it into a hole or ny f ri & or fern ' 60 that we seldom see ? of their work. What dead rabbits

we find are most likely -killed by (iats/ *l\ admit the value of cats, for of that we have evidence in the number of young rabbits the house cats bring in, and if we enly knew how many they kill and leave out, the evidence would be much stronger. But that is not the question, for we may say that we tried the cats and found them wanting. We need a more drastic enemy, one that will clear them out at once.' ' But,' said Tim, *if we had spent as much on distributing and protecting Cats as we havo on ferrets, and if we wore content to wait as long for results, we might have a different opinion of cats.' The Natural Enemies. " Tho natural enemy, as we have it, is altogether a misnomer. The real natural enemy of any animal is that which removes its food — the rabbit of the sheep, the ferret of the cat, and the weasel of the stoat. If we could get that sort of enemy for the rabbits their time would be up. And if there was not too much of a twist in it, and too much time in view of it, I would be inclined to recommend something in that line. If we had introduced some simpler creature to starye out the rabbits, and then brought the mvstelida, we might have had a chance, but now we may as well throw up the sponge or start the fencing. Our sheep runs in sources than rabbits, are as opposite as the poles New Zealand, in their barrenness of other reto the native haunts of the mustclida, and our evidence is against the probability of their being able to subsist exclusively on rabbits (supposing they could catch them), so that when they finish up the few larks, lizards, and wekas, they will have to look around a little; and if transportation demoralises them as much as it demoralised the rabbits, we will have a pretty kettle of fish. When they cull the rabbits sufficiently, they will find the others so hard to catch that they will not be abovo dining on a dead sheep. From this it is only one step to live ones, that may bo falten or helpless, and another step to the sheep in camp or fold, where the ferrets may surprise them and feed on them aljve like the ke^s. The latter took 20 years to learn their horrible habits. In England tho ferrets had no temptation to attack sheep, and few opportunities of learning to do so. They had abundance of other resources which are absent here, and in their stead, there is an ever recurring temptation to attack helpless or fallen sheep. Fancy, a starving ferret coming upon one of the3e. I can readily imagine that the lizards and larks would be left in peace for the future; that with abundance of food from an auimal that had no cunning to avoid them, our ferrets would soon become as famous as our keas and rabbits. And it is quite possible that they have already commenced on the sheep, and that many have seen their work, but blamed it on the gulls. " The poor weka was once very plentiful in New Zealand, but before the ferret it disappears like a shadow. Ifc used to kill mice, rats, and young rabbits, and when it saw a ferret it chased it like a rat, ami of course gave up the ghost. "If it is a fact that there are thousands of ferrets at Kaikoura, and very few rabbits, it is evident that the ferrets must have something to live upon, and from what I know of them I am perfectly certain that there must be plenty of dead sheep there, or else the ferrets have already commenced on the live ones. But of course we will hear nothing of that from Kaikoura. " What station owner or manager would have the temerilry to state that he had more deaths from ferrets than rabbits, and that between the two he was very anxious to soil out. Oh no, the first we will hear of it will be a mild disapproval of ferrets, like that from the Oamaru Club. Would it nob become anyone, before he saddles himself with a nuisance, to make a few simple experiments by placing rabbits and ferrets in an enclosure, and watching results, taking care to imitate natural conditions as nearly as possible. '• Even in a small csnelosure where the rabbits cannot get out of sight of the ferret, his goad opinion of ferrets will receive a serious shock. But in a largo enclosure where the rabbits can scamper away, he will find that his ferret will die of starvation before it catches all the rabbits But if he ties a sheep to represent a fallen one, he will find that the ferret will not die of starvation. And if he turns in a lot of ewes in tho lambing season, he will find the ferret and rabbits flourishing. The V;ilue of Wire Netting. 11 A rabbiNproof fence may now be erected for about £60 per mile. Large contracts for netting and standards, with the lower freights iv view, may enable us to erect a rabbit-proof fence as cheaply ns an ordinary phrep fence. Long ago I fencc-d with wire netting a few pastures lo decoy rabbits for trapping. These were intact for year?, and plainly showed what old New Zealand w:ik like hpfore the rabbits came, and overstocking, cirscd it If I had fenced the best (>f my run into 500-oure lots, I could have given those lots the necessary year or two's spell, and then they would have tided my sheep over many a winter pinch. Outside the netting would have been such an effective place for laying poisons, that my sheep would have thriven on the hills for the greater part of the year. The stock that I could have saved and the money that I wasted on rabbits would have paid for that fencing. * " In any comprehensive scheme of fencing, existing boundaries must be ignored, without necessarily changing ownership, because a fence on a hill side in snow is worthless to stop the rabbits in their stampede for the low country. The fences should run up the spurs and along the sunny side of the saddles. The fences across flats liable to be flooded, would obviously be so very hard to maintain effective, that they at present appear to be our greatest difficulty. But would it not pay better to keep a man at every such fence than to keep him inside of it aa we do now, catching thi» rabbits after they have done the damage? In many instances the fences could run up to the bluffs, where they would be very easy to maintain. Three-foot netting of Hin mesh is quite sufficient, if only 4iu in the around, because a rabbit will not start to burrow far enough back to get under it, but starts so close that the wire baffles it. A strained wire 6in above the netting makes it an indefinite and awkward object to jump; and a rabbit is physically unfitted to climb, so that there need be no fear of such contingencies. 11 All my advocacy of fencing will be met by dissentients with a single phrase :-*■' What of means ' But some may have the means. The first thing we want is to decide upon the best method, and to get rid of time-wasting fads. ' Then, ' where there is a will there is a way.' "

— " A Complete Letter Writer," is a handy thing to have, but make sure your sweetheart hasn't the same book. A Wise Deacon.— "Deacon Wilder, I want you to tell me how you kept yourself aud family so well the past; season, when all the rest of us have been sick so much , and have bad the doctors running to us so often." " Brother TayJor,the answer is very easy. I used Hop Bittkhs in time, and kept my family well, and saved large doctor's bills. Four shillings worth of ifc kept us all well aud able to work all the time, and I will warrant it has cost you and most of the neighbours £10 to £100 apiece to keep sick the came time. I fancy you'll take my medicine hereafter." See.— [Adtt.]