SNOWED IN

Timaru Herald, Volume CL, Issue 22063, 9 September 1941, Page 4

SNOWED IN

Back-Country Station

Holders

Sheep Losses Mounting Up

(P.A.) ASHBURTON, Sept. 8. Conditions that are as bad as many people living in the back country behind Ashburton have seen for a long period of years have isolated some of the run-holders for three weeks, and it was hoped, that graders which Were to be put to work this morning would break a way through the snow and permit access to the outside world.

The taking in of supplies and mail to the runs at the head of Lake Heron has been accompanied by great difficulty. Pack horses have been the only means of getting food and other requirements into the Lake runs, and at times the journey around the end of the lake has been impossible and boats had to be used to take men across the lake to Clent Hills. The conditions were made much worse by the bad weather over the week-end, when several more inches of snow fell on top of the deep drifts that have filled the area since early last month. There has not been sufficient feed on the few uncovered spurs to keep the sheep going, and hand feeding has been carried out. For all the efforts that have been made by men on skis to get the sheep collected into tight groups for easier feeding and general protection, it is beleved that the losses among ewes is steadily mounting and that on the very rough country there Will be considerable numbers of deaths. Maiiy Sheep Smothered Many sheep have already been smothered In the heavy drifts, and the conditions led to tlife freezing of the snow. Which made It eVen more difficult to get the sheep OUt and fob the sheep to break a way for themselves. On top of this the fall over the weekend. Wheh the elements were particularly bleak, was four inches at Cieht Hills, ahd increasingly heavier toward the mountains. The losses of sheep, however, are said to be ndt at an alarming rate. The rough spell has come at a very bad time for ewes, which should be building up on new pastures. At the Lake Heron, clent Hills, and Hakatere stations, it is said, thc c is bound be a fairly high loss. When pack-horses failed to get the run-holders through from the runs beyond the lakes, the men took tp boats to cross the lake, pack-horses meeting them on this side, but this etitailed a good deal of hardship on their part ahd it was thought that if conditions today were at all reasonable, the graders would be able to make the tracks fairly passable, and so let the run-holders out.

Conditions at the northern end of the County, around the Rakaia Gorge, were bad over the Week-end, telephoned reports from there this morning stating that it had rained and hailed and bloWh, with intervals of heavy sleet, sihee 11 o’clock on Saturday morning. There was no show lying on the ground this morning in that locality, but there was a great deal of surface water.