THE RABBIT QUESTION

Otago Witness, Issue 3512, 5 July 1921, Page 11

THE RABBIT QUESTION

PE3T CAN BE ELIMINATED. ISOLATION THE MEANS. A well-known settler of Central Otago, who has devoted years to the question of tho rabbit pest, was interviewed last week in regard to the present situation. He i:as spent almost a lifetime fighting the nuisance. His present property was at one time badly infested, but he completely eliminated the rabbit by isolating his land and then dealing with the pest on approved line 3. He does not favour trapping; to eradicate the rabbit poisoning- and sterner methods have to be adopted, and he carefully conserved the natural enemy—ferrets, weasels, etc. One of the bad features of trapping, he said, was that these were caught and destroyed The settler was emphatic in his declaration that the Department was proceeding on right lines. It was only lack of courage t n the part of the authorities that prevented the matter being taken in hand long ago. He eulogised Mr Nosworthy (Minister of Agriculture) for the stand he took, leading to the present, enactment. There was no doubt whatever* that there had been systematic farming of toe rabbit for years. The hue and cry against the. Act was not tho outcome of the present time of stress; there would have been the. same hue and cry long ago if prosecutions had taken place. Prosecutions, however, were previously rare. The Department had now put its foot down end the rabbit had to go. IGNORANCE AND INDIFFERENCE. The farmer stated that he had gone fully into the question for years past with members of the Stock Department, the Expansion League, and mercantile firms. The trouble was that it was impossible to get unity so that proper and effective steps could be taken generally to get rid of the rabbit. The present generation of run holders and farmers in Central Otago had always had rabbits; they had never known ihe country without them, and looked upon the rabbit as a necessary evil that they could not get away from. 1 lie consequence was that they were indifferent about getting lid of tl em; as a matter of fact, they were ignorant of ihe acf.,al amount of damage the rabbit was doing and had never seriously studied ihe amount of loss annually caused by tho rabbit,. ISOLATION OF HOLDINGS ESSENTIAL. With regard to the actual methods to cope with the rabbit the farmer stated emphatically that it was absolutely necessary in first place that there should be complete isolation of every bo ding. Without that the rabbit could never be got rid of. His present place, which he had occupied for the past 16 years, consisted of 5000 acres, and was surrounded by badly-infested country At the present time he was absolutely free of the post. He attributed that to the fact that the place had been “ isolated,” being completely ring-fenced with rabbit-proof netting. Once a place was properly isolated in that manner the pest could be dealt w*ith quite easily, but until it was done any measures taken to get rid of the rabbit were useless. This question was the crux of the whole matter. Before any settler could cope with the rabbit he must be isolated. There were plenty of recognised methods of killing the rabbit, and any man who honestly wished to clear his country cou d do so. It was useless, however, incurring the expense unless the land was properly enclosed. He strongly advocated that all rabbitinfested country should be declared rabbitinfested districts by the authorities, arid that within those districts all boundary fences should be compulsorily rabbit proof and maintained in a rabbit-proof condition jointly by the owners. He considered that any legislation bv the department would be ineffective until the onus of suppressing the nuisance was sheeted home to tho right person. Questioned regarding rabbit- boards, the settler stated that he was satisfied that such boards were desirable. It was a right method in which to approach the whole question, as the boards could completely isolate their districts and deal with them But he would go further than that. He would say that every individual should bo his own “ rabbit board.” That was the onlv possible solution to the whole difficulty. Even when a property was isolated rabbits would creep into some extent; they naturally tended to seek their way to good pasture, arid where improvement had been effected they would always seek to enter. The point he wished to emphasise was that any man who conscientiously wished to do so could kill his own rabbits, but he could not kill those of his neighbour, and tho only remedy was to empower the department to compel all landowners to erect proof boundaries. A man might conceivably do. everything in his power to get rid of rabbits at present and still lie liable to prosecution owing to the inroad from neighbouring places. . Questioned with regard to the cost of ring fencing, the settler estimated that at the present time it would cost about £SO to £75 per mile to turn boundary fences into rabbit-proof fences. The expense seemed heavy, but actually there was no reason whatever that every farmer ana runholder should not so fence his property. Every mercantile house or bank financing the farmer recognised that rabbit-proof fences properly maintained increased its security tremendously and was the only method of completely eradicating rabbits. He was quite satisfied that there was not a firm in town backing the farmer but which, if told it was impossible to get rid of tho pest, would say, “Go ahead arid net it,” that was, provided the firm was satisfied as to the security of tenure. THE SHEEP AND THE RABBIT. Questioned as to how long it would take for tho natural grasses to return to places in Central Otago rained by rabbits, the runholder agreed with another estimate that in two years (here would be' a great improvement in the pasture, and many of the better native grasses would be re-estab-lished. The loss of the pasture was almost solely due to the presence of the rabbit; in very few cases indeed had overstocking anything to do with it. He questioned if there was any overstocking with sheep ex-

cepfc in very rare cases. The present carrying capacity of rabbit-infested country in Central Otago varied from one sheep to five acres to one sheep to 10 acres. If the rabbit were eliminated and the native pasture allowed to return, the carrying cap acity would be doubled, and more. it would be a perfectly safe estimate to reckon that every 10 rabbits displaced one sheep, and there were areas of Crown lands today carrying thousands and thousands of rabbits, and thousands were killed off every ee-ason. There were areas of 5000, 10,000 and 20,C00 acres on which two, three, apd up to five rabbits to the acre were killed every year. That under the present system might go on till Doomsday. If the rabbit could be got rid of, Central Otago would be the soundest sheep country in the dominion LEASEHOLD TENURE CONDEMNED. The settler attributed the present situation to a large extent to the insecurity of the leasehold tenure. He pointed out that practically the whole of Central Otago was held on Crown lease. There was not the same incentive to make improvements, the tenants being more concerned about taking everything cut of their holdings rather than putting anything in from which they received no benefit. The stricture applied particularly to short-dated leases, which were particularly bad. These short-dated leases were, he said, detrimental to the whole of Otago; they curse of the province.