PESTS AND VERMIN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 71, Issue 177, 28 July 1928, Page 22 (Supplement)

PESTS AND VERMIN

Climate and Vacant Spaces Make Danger Acute

New Zealand has always been recognised by the outside world as an Agricultural country, and in many ways not to be companed with th>i United Kingdom, where, for the most part, farming is a side line as an Industry. Therefore one would assume that our legislators would necessarily be fairly conversant with farming as a business, and our Laws be framed to so adjust things that the agricultural community, the backbone of our country, was protected as far as possible, but always equitably as compared with otteer branahis of industry in the Dominion.

While not denying that much, and along certain unessential lines, too much, has been done to safeguard the farming interests, one cannot, help being struck by the apparent ignorance, and the seeming apathy of those in high p'aces. This does not apply to the Agricultural Department, with its farms and instructors, far too few, scattered throughout the country. This is a live body, but too often hampered ' in its efficiency by a lack of finance,: and by meddling in Parliament. Also, it is not intended hero to start, a tirade, and bring up all the complaints possib’e, but to confine our remarks to an ever-growing serious problem in connection with our agricultural life. We refer to pests and vermin. AV ho can deny the wholesale waste, ever increasing year by year, caused by the encroachment on our lands of the rabbit, gorse, and blackberry—only three of our enemies? Their name is legion, and when we enquire, “Whence came they!” the reply “immigrants” comes forth “pat” in all cases. Now, these, unfortunately, are firmly established in our land, and that being so, it would seem that the next logical step is to attack those that are in, and strive to keep out any others that so far have no yet sighted this paradise for pests and vermin. Before dealing further with a policy of treatment, let us examine briefly the right of any of these to the name of “pest”. The rabbit—he is not really a pest in his native home, (if such a cosmopolitan creature can be said to be a native of any one country.) In fact, in J'lngland it is possible to earn six months imprisonment for appropriating to one’s self a rabbit from the fields of your neighbouring squire or laird. And why! The natural enemies, the stoat, weasel, hawk, falcon, eagle, fox. etc. and climate, ell wage endless war on the unhappy rodent, and so serve to keep in check the ever-present tend ency to over-population in the bunny family. There never has been, and never need be, any fear of the rabbit developing in the United Kingdom into the serious menace to our farms that it has done in New Zealand and Australia. i And why shoo'd that be so here is I often asked. Can we not, by introdue- | ing its natural enemies, keep any pest iin check! The answer is “no,” and ' •' r ‘‘no,” as long as our population 1 so meagre, our farms so scattered, in nd our climate, so much better than I the climate from whence the new-com-ers, both pests and other animals to be la pest to th<* pests, come. The stoat, land th. weasel, brought here by a ‘ well-meaning Government, to prey on j the rabbit, have found it. easier to at- ! tack our fowl roosts, our native birds, land our native and imported game, and i only on a very small scale will they I now be of use to exterminate that for ■ which they were first introduced.

And iso our catalogue of pests has tw< additions, and history tells us that thiis not the only country where the friends in another country have turnml out to be our most inveterate encmi - when we have taken them from their original habitat, and given them new environment, and a fresh food supply. Our Plant Pests. And the blackberry and the gorse: what of them? In their native habitat they certainly grow wel’, and in place* amount to a nuisance, and a source oi loss of income, but where the popula tion is extensive, as in England, there can they be kept in check; but in Nevi Zealand they have found a country fai beyond their wildest hopes, far bettei adapted to their growth, where th< climate is ideal, and where no on< worries them with knife or spade, anc so

And thus we can go through the lisl nf our enemies, and in all cases w< find that a'tcred environment, notably as regards climate, (and here in New Zealand the alteration is all to tin benefit of the importation) has causec in one country is a controllable discomfort, to develop into an uaeon

trollable unmitigated nuisance, and a danger to the welfare of the land of their adoption. It is not our intention at present to go into the methods of extermination—these must be left to other more capable linnds—but what we can, and do insist on. is that, a rigorous check be kept on the importation of any further undesirables, and a ruthless war waged on those already established.

Some time ago one of our members of Parliament, who shall be nameless, actually proposed that foxes be introduced into New Zea’and. It would, he averred, make our fair country more like unto “Mcrrie England.” Is any, comment needed? Next shall we have advocates for the squirrel, that, pretty little creature —and then “goodbye” to our forests! Or the badger; he’d do well here, and with the otter, could hunt far and wide, and deplete our resources, but would, of course, serve as an attraction to entice money-bagged tourists of other lands to come here for the sport of chasing him. Wc have the deer now for that purpose, and ask any farmer what he thinks of red deer as an acquisition to his broad acres. Will some home-sick Australian bring us the dingo, and so 1 ‘ad nauseam.” No. Sport is a grand thing, but no country yet has gone far ahead on its sport alone, and where such sport militates against the primary industry of the country then wc must be wary about increasing that sport, and so introducing yet. more pests to share in the farm profits. Introduction, of Heather. Lately reports have come to hand that the heather, introduced into the Government reserve at Tongariro, is flourishing apace, and promising soon to be thoroughly acclimatised and established. On the wastes on which it has been sown and planted, it will be a firn* thing, and serve to beautify the hitherto barren s'opes, and to provide food for sheep, and later, grouse. But

—who will be so daring as to promise tthat it will stay there? Will it migrate, as other pests have done, and later go to swell the already long list of these?

Again, anyone who has seen the heather growing, and has been in Scotland where heather is the staple fodder of those excellent mutton sheep, the Highland and the Blackface, must know that only young heather is relished by the stock for grazing, the coarser growth serving as shelter only during the severe winters, and to secure a sufficient growth, of young shoots, periodical burning on a systematic rotation must be practised, and is, to the benefit of the stock, grouse and ptarmigan. But can this be done in New Zealand, and particularly in the Tongariro Nat.iofi.al Park, or near to, with its national heritage of native bush? Who will light the match to set fire to our heather there when this is required? A fire thus started in this district would speedily be uncontrollable, and is out of the question, and without burning, and

! in the very favourable climate of this country, heather will rapidly deteriorate into a weed, and a serious pest. Will it in time outgrow our own heath, the manuka? Who can say? The Balance of Nature;. If we will interfere with the balance of nature, and artificial’y, attempt, to control the living things of this earth, we must devote long study to the after control of such life, and beware least we be cutting a .rod for our own chas-

' tisement. i Much good work is being done by th-? ! Agricultural Department and the Cawthron Institute, but it behoves our leg- > islators to be more chary in the grantj ing of permission to import new plant and anima’s to the Dominion, and only i v.fliere it can be proved that the immi- ' grant will not in time develop into a. ' nuisance, and a parasite, should such permission be granted. The safest policy is “don’t” where there may be any doubt at all.