£60 A WEEK AND HEALTH.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 16895, 18 November 1920, Page 6

£6O A WEEK AND HEALTH.

SNARING'IN TASMANIA.

' Formerly Australia was content to leave the 'business of supplying, fur in quantity to America, Russia,- and the older countries ot ! the Vvorld that raise more valuable furred game and contributed indifferently to the hat-making industry with rabbit skins. Now all that has changed, and the humble rabbit, wallaby, kangaroo, and oppossum are yielding furs for coats, rugs, and .stoles, and those willing to face the' privations of 51 life are making fortunes by the change, notably in this little island of Tasmania, says an Australian writer. - ■ It is quite usual for indifferent to make £25 a week, but the experts make up to £6O. One of the leading fur exporters’ of Hobart assures mo that this sum is a fair average with many of Ilfs customers. As I wasf speaking to him he wrote a cheque for £l*2oo—the proceeds from skins trapped during three months by two brothers in the far western forests. IX rx n The trappers are sought after. Caravans go out into the bush for weeks buying up skins. Before the war landowners were glad to have trappers to keep down the game that devastated their “runs,” but skins have now become so valuable that they lot the trapping rights for big rentals, and there are'many applicants. The State Government has followed their -load in respect to Crown lands. Options are now held for two seasons ahead over the best trapping country. The trapper soon leans the signs of the bush as well as the aboriginals who preceded him. Bent undergrowth and slightly disturbed leaves show him the tracks used by the' wallaby on its way to the open country or the water holes, and fresh scratchings on the gum tree trunks point unerringly to the lair of

the opossum. Hero and there bro Ken bushes show 'where a kangaroo has passed and a half-devoured carcase points to the disturbed, feast of a native cat or bush tiger. He will surely return to it when the sun sinks. The worn tracks down the river flats mark the paths that thousands of rabbits use every night. _ t , All these signs are noted, and a maiiv is placed ion the neighbouring tree to fix the location. Towards evening the trapper goes back loaded with snares and patent traps. At the foot or the tall tree in which the opossum sleeps he makes a shallow excavatiofi. and gets a small round spring trap, carefully covers it, and coats the newly turned soil * with dead leaves, !Not & sign of the visit must remain. Along the wallaby and kangaroo track he searches out a young sapling, drives a stout peg into the ground on the opposite side where the sapling enters the ground, and bends the saplintr over to it like a bow, and secures it so that the slightest disturbance will release it. He then fastens a running noose to the sapling, open enough for the animal's head and forequarters to enter, right in his path. . « Thus he goes his rounds improvising traps to the occasion, and reaches camp for the night meal of steaks cut from the catches of the previous night. It is a simple and healthy way of earning £6O a week and not without its pleasures.