SHEEP OR RABBITS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3828, 26 July 1927, Page 12

SHEEP OR RABBITS.

Sonic years ago it looked very much if rabbits would take possession of the best of the pastoral country in Otago. Indeed, for some time they were making headway despite weasels, phosphorous and strychnine poisoning, trap- < ping, etc. Judging by the decreased < number of skins, however, handled of < recent years, it was not until the fur heeame valuable that Brer Rabbit com- i menced to either move on or be removed, 1 The decrease in rabbit numbers gener- > ally is due in a great measure to the persistent policy of the officers of the local Department of Agriculture, who have, in season and out of season, made war on what they deemed to be (and rightly) a “ pest,” and by encouraging i the formation of rabbit boards, supplying strychnine poison, and rallying up the rabbit farmers conduced to the marketing of pelts in the breeding season. The commercial value of the rabbit in the department’s eyes was as nothing compared with the sheep. Its policy has borne good fruit, as witness the recent sheep returns. According to an interim return of Dominion sheep on April 30, gazetted recently, Otago’s increase on the year totals 352,265 out of a total increase for New Zealand of 467,381 for the same period. No doubt the decrease in the rabbits in the province permitted this expansion in sheep numbers. It is interesting to note that the total increase in the North Island is only 52,600, in Canterbury-Kaikoura 70,167, while Marlborough-Nelson-West-land show a decrease in the year 1927 of 7651 compared with the previous year’s return at April 30. It is not to be inferred entirely, of course, that because the sheep numbers outside Otago do not show much of an increase that the rabbits are there making headway; but our experience of Brer Babbit is profound, and doubtless he is seeking pastures new- He is a pest in sheep country, and his usefulness among arable crops is yet to be determined. One may recall some bygone history of interest in the foregoing connection, in 1879 the Galloway' Station, Central carried approximately 75,000 sheep, but in 1911 the total had dwindled to some 20,000, a loss in carrying capacity of 55,000, due chiefly to rabbits, despite man’s best efforts to reduce the pest. When one considers that five rabbits equal one sheep in feeding and in destructive-capacity, some idea may be formed of the toll taken when rabbits gather in force. There is no doubt they enabled many a man to take up sheep country, but they have on the other hand cost the country a mint of money. There is, of course, the other side of the question. The fur trade has assumed such gigantic proportions that it cannot be ignored. There is a world trade to-day in fur, and we have recently heard it suggested that rabbit farming should be encouraged in New Zealand; that the Chinchilla rabbit should be introduced in order to breed up a bigger and better furred rabbit than the present Dominion product. Mr B. S. Black, of Dunedin, says the Chinchilla rabbitskin realises up to £1 per skin. The pastoralist would have to look ’to his laurels if the idea of introducing an improved breed of rabbits wast ever put into practice, as no one can deny that the possibilities of the fur trade are immense. In England there are many’ rabbit farms. The adult Angora rabbit is shorn possibly six times a year, and yields about 18oz a year of wool (known as “ furida ”) realising up to 35s per lb. They arc housed- Then there are others, good specimens, realising the price of a well-bred ram. The bar at

present to an extension of the industry in New Zealand is the present Babbit Act, and it would require an immense amount of persuasion ere the Legislature would tamper with an Act which even forbids the keeping of rabbits in hutches.

The fact remains that rabbitskins have not been marketed in the vast numbers of former years whatever the cause, the decline, generally speaking, being around 20 per cent., and coincidentally our sheep numbers have gone up. The high price of skins, closer settlement, inopportune climatic conditions for rabbits at certain seasons, improved poisoning and destructive methods, their enemies, weasels, etc., and, finally, the innate, delicate distaste of the rabbit for other than sweet herbage have all been factors in mitigating their numbers in Otago.