Rabbit Destruction.

Southland Times, Issue 9164, 13 March 1886, Page 3

Rabbit Destruction.

TO THE EDITOB. > Sib,— As the price of rabbitskios will be . - low this winter, and rabbit* thicker than - they have been for years, owing to sucb a dry _Beason.beiog favourable to their increase, I c wonldliketo bring under the notice of the Government the desirability of carrying all rabbits free of charge on the railways, as it would bs the means of nuruboia of them being killed that would other w We not be, owing to the low price, for skins. People, especially about towns and on Government reserves, will not kill them for tlw skins. It wqnld pay them to kill rabbits for market if G&r&e&JreQ on Jthe railways, which would. be the means of both making employment for a number of people in the winter, and keeping down the rabbits about townships v Wttd' r&ebrie? ; A little- 1 bsrality in this - dizectiou would pay the^Gvernment better ' ■ndVgb'".iarth'er. to cope with the rabbitfli than' turning out a lot of ferrets to - diet 'Enppose there are ten ferrets ,in a xabbit- bmtov, they *re very comfortable while they have plenty of young ra^its to lire on ; but when a heavy fall of snow comes and stops on the ground for ten days, with ibarp frofts at night, what do we fiad ? Why, that the rabbits leave.tbe burrows au<l , doa^ return to them again, conceqnefjtly-, ai the Hm\* we not »W to trayd tbroPg^ (he

saow (win-*, anybody with any knowledge of ferrets know), tbey come to the mouth of the but iow, and - being very delicate animals they soon die from cold and hunger. I am not wj it ing from mere heanifty, bat from what I lme seen with my own eyes ; and 1 know plenty of others that have- seen "the ssrne thing. I.know of a piece ol warm lowlying ccuntry where ferrets were numerous in summer, heavy snow and frost came- in the winter and you could see ferrels lying dead roundabout the buirows. On this country nota live one was to be seen at the -end of the winter, You might 'jm well expect a New Zealander to live in Iceland without food in tbe winter. In the present state of funds does it not seem the height of folly to be turning out ferrets at such places as Manapouti, etc,, merely because lome squatter wishes it. It aeems to me, and always has done, that these rabbit inspectors are a per* feet; farce kept to mop up and waste the public money.— l am, &c. , Interested. Lumßden,*9th March, 1886,