RABBIT PEST AT KARIOI

Waipa Post, Volume 32, Issue 1788, 29 July 1926, Page 5

RABBIT PEST AT KARIOI

EFFECTIVE SUPPRESSION measures. Recent statements published on the authority of a party of Wanganui sportsmen Avho were shooting on a Karioi sheep station, gave the impre - sion that the country m that district was rapidly going back -in the face ot the -rabbit invasion. Karioi settle s resent this implication, and state that the capacity of the country on. Poetically all the stationls is steadily mC 1 An isolated case in which neglect or carelessness lias permitted the rabbit nest to take command does not, they claim,, furnishes justification for any assumption that the country is becoming useless as wool-producing Inno- - D P. Cullinane, of TangaAvai station, Karioi, told a Wanganui Chronicle reporter that practically all the farmers were Avaging warfare agains the rabbit. Thus one large property off which, five years ago, 80,000 rabb*fc skins were taken, yielded only 35,000 odd skins last year, and another year or so would see the rabbits cleaned ° U “ The trouble is,” said Mr Cullinane, “-that there is a large area of Government land, beyond the railway line, -where th-e rabbits are practically unchecked. The pest breeds rapidly, and 'thus must overflow on to the adjacent properties.” . .. _ • A station whose output had fallen from ninety bales of avool to tivo bales was not typical of Karioi land, added IMr 'Cull 1 inane. Ail the other stations Avere increasing their outputs; if t.ie\ -were othenvise —if they Aver-e like the place Avhere 2000 rabbit skins Avere taken off tAVO acids—then a farmer could make much more- at Is 6d, pel rabbit skin than he could ever make at AVOOI-gi'OAVing.