PLAGUE OF HARES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 76, Issue 178, 31 July 1933, Page 8

PLAGUE OF HARES

CONCERN IN VICTORIA DAMAGE TO CROPS INCREASE IN NUMBERS. MELBOURNE, July 6. Outlawed by the State Executive Council, declared to bo noxious vermin, and sentenced to death by shooting aud trapping wherever discovered, the common Victorian hare is tho latest world dweller to bo affected by the financial depression. Because farmers, orchardists and wheatgrowers in recent years have been unable to afford sufficient power and shot to keep his numbers within reasonable limits, this hare has spread so rapidly north ot‘ “the Divide” that everywhere there now are rapidly increasing families. The names Lepus Europus and Lepus Timidus are used to distinguish this fleet 81b. pest .from his rarer brother, the mountain hare. How the Lepus Europus first came to Australia is not recorded, but his local family tree dates back to the first settlement. And, as has been the case with so many virile migrants, he has prospered amazingly in Australia. To-day ho squats over areas of Australia in such numbers that in Northern Victoria the hare plague is officially spoken of by the Vermin Destruction. Branch as an “avalanche.” Lepus Europus is everwhere throughout the Wimmera, the northern country, and the old Mallee, and now is driving north through the New Alallee to the Murray River. Yet that river will not stop his destructive march, for a peculiarity of the hare is ability to swim even the widest rivers to escape from dogs or to secure more feed. Other peculiarities are that the female Lepus produces numerous litters each year, averaging from two to five leverets at each birth, and that these are nursed for ono month only. They then depart from the family homes, to begin, their individual lives of destruction among yourg fruit trees, newly-planted wheat crops, and fodder grasses. And because the hare is not a rodent, and chooses young grass and wheat for most of its meals, it cannot be poisoned. Its habits of rapid migration throughout each district, and of seldom congregating in colonies prevent the development of ay effective method of poisoning. According to the chief inspector of the Vermin Destruction Branch, Mr. Pemberton, hares this year already have Caused such destruction among the young wheat crops that wide areas in the north have had to bu resown. Rabbits, and certain native Australian animals, may eat wheat crops, but their attacks do little damage. When a crop is eaten by hares, however, they cut through the young shoots so close to tbo ground that the shoots never grow again. When the wheat crops have been eaten off in this way the hare seeks young fruit trees. Those it destroys by nibbling the bark around the trunk, working so rapidly that only a few hares are needed to r'rngbark and kill a thousand trees in a single night.