RABBITS AND TRAPPERS.

Southland Times, Issue 19395, 8 November 1924, Page 2

RABBITS AND TRAPPERS.

To the Editor. Sir, —In your issue of November 4 I notice a letter upon the rabbit question signed “Landowner” and although the writer may be a landowner one doesn’t require to be much of a seer to conclude that he is or has been one of those brainy trappers he extoles. Now, I have no personal grievance against any trapper in particular, but am dead against the trapping method of exterminating bunny. I quite concede his point in comparing the expert with the novice but to go on, he says a professional trapper will catch 300 rabbits a day against the amateurs’ 30 or 40. lam not a trapper in any sense of the word, but I have watched and controlled various methods of eradication and I have ever found trapping the least effective. Landowner asks how professional trappers are responsible for the increase of rabbits, let me say in answer that firstly trapping only reduces them to such a point that those remaining are kept in a splendid state of health and vigour so that they breed as only rabbits can. Secondly, trpping destroys all the natural enemies of the rabbit such as stoats, weasels, ferrets, cats, etc. Ninety-nine of every hundred trappers otherwise kill all they come across in order that bunny may not be reduced by the time skins are dear enough to induce the professional trapper to go out again. Until then one could not pull a rabbiter on to one’s place with a team of bullocks. It is our own fault as farmers that we don’t try more persistent methods than we use. It is purely the farmer’s own fault that he feeds ail these millions of rabbits for months and months for outsiders (men, women and children) to catch by the various methods. As for all the discomforts Landowner refers to, they are according to the individual makeup of any particular man. Some I admit in their greed to make all they can on a block of country do lead a pretty rough life, but it is not absolutely necessary, for I am sure the money many of them make in a very short time would enable many of them to live like lords, although in a tent or sod hut; but there are many of them in such an indecent hurry to get rich quick that they have but little time for personal comforts. In a way, Mr Editor, I apologise for writing this letter as it is really the province of the party who signed himself “Interested,” but I was fearing “Interested” may not bother replying to Landowner and I could not allow his, to me, high-handed assertions to go unchallenged because I do happen to know trapping is good for no one but the professional trapper. If legislation were brought in that every landowner was compelled to lay poison practically simultaneously, the scourge could be coped with easily. Until then we are only hunting rabbits from one locality to another. In conclusion I was highly amused by Landowner’s references to the 14,000,000 rabbits killed every year with a cost to the landowner that is practically nil. Landowner evidently thinks all this 14,000,000 rabbits have been brought up on air. What about the keep of all these millions of rabbits? Has their keep and the ground they pollute been at no cost to landowners? In conclusion, Mr Editor, let me say that all this outcry for cheap netting is all very well for indiivdual purposes, but speaking broadly simultaneous poisoning, say in one week, with whatever poison may best suit the country to be treated, would I am sure meet all requirements but it must be practically simultaneously carried out to get the fullest results. Finally the man who allows his property to become so infested with rabbits that a professional rabbiter with trapes can catch 300 a day, as stated by Landowner wants his head read. All the same, it is a very nice state of things for the professional rabbiter. I am, etc., T. GILLER.