RABBIT-NUISANCE LEGISLATION.

New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Volume XVIII, Issue 1, 20 January 1919, Page 62

RABBIT-NUISANCE LEGISLATION.

THE RECENT AMENDING ACT.

The full text of the Rabbit Nuisance Amendment Act, 1918, is here printed for the information of settlers and others, as follows :—

■ i. This Act may be cited as the Rabbit Nuisance Amendment Act, 1918, and shall be read together with and deemed part of the . Rabbit Nuisance • Act, 1908 (hereinafter referred to as the principal Act).

2. (1.) After service on the owner or owners of any private land of a notice under section six of the principal Act (requiring the immediate destruction of rabbits on that land) it shall be the duty of the owner or owners on whom such notice is served forthwith to commence and thereafter to continue to do to the satisfaction of the Inspector all such acts as in the opinion of the Inspector may be necessary to destroy within the shortest time possible all rabbits that may be on the land mentioned in the notice, and any owner who makes default in so doing shall be liable to a fine of not more than one hundred pounds. (2.) For any continuance or repetition of any such default as aforesaid at any time later than one month after the date of any conviction therefor the person so convicted shall be further liable to a fine not less than five pounds' and not more than one hundred pounds, and so on from time to time in respect of each succeeding conviction. •. (3.) This section is in substitution for sections seven, eight, and nine of the principal Act, and those sections are accordingly repealed.

3. Section twenty-six of the principal Act* is hereby amended by inserting, after the words “ any such animal,” the words “ or the skin of such animal ” ; and after the word " animal,” where it last occurs in the said section, the words “ or the skin, as the case may be ” ; and by omitting the words “ twenty pounds,” and substituting the words “ forty pounds.”

4. Section sixty-nine of the principal . Actf is hereby amended as follows : (a) By omitting from subsection one the words two hundred thousand acres,” and substituting the words two thousand acres ” ; and by adding to the same subsection the words Provided that no district shall be so constituted unless it. contains the holdings of not less than ten ratepayers " ; and (&) by repealing subsection two. .

5. Subsection one of section eighty-two of the principal Act£ is hereby amended by omitting the words “ three-sixteenths of a penny,” and substituting

the words “ one penny ” ; and by adding at the end thereof the words “ but the total amount payable by any one owner shall not exceed one shilling per acre of his holding.”

6. The provisions .of sections one hundred and four to one hundred and thirteen of the principal Act* shall extend and apply with the necessary modifications to the construction of rabbit-proof wire-netting fences by Boards elected by the ratepayers under Part III of the principal Act. • • ;

* Loans from the Government.

* Relating to the “natural enemy” and fines for killing, &c., any such animal. .■ t Dealing with Rabbit Boards elected by ratepayers, and related districts. . . f Power of Rabbit Boards to levy rates. ....