The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prevalebit. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1886. IMPORTED VERMIN.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1343, 16 September 1886, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prevalebit. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1886. IMPORTED VERMIN.

In the course of an article on Acclimatisation, published in our issue of Tuesday last, we had occasion to rental k that in the case of the small bird pest and the rabbit nuisance the colony is already suffering severely from the mistakes ofacclimatis'.s, and in previous articles on the same subject have expressed grave feais that we are on the way to experience equally serious disadvantages from the recent importation of stoats, weasels, and other fercc naturae of the predatory sort. These interesting and malodorous creatures, together with their congeners the ferret and the pole-cat, have been introduced in very considerable numbers with the view of checking the increase of the rabbits which in some parts of the colony have starved out the sheep and ruined the runholders, but there Is only too much reason to fear that our selection of “ natural enemies ” (of the rabbit) has been altogether too indiscriminate, and that in getting rid of one pest we are establishing an even worse one, on thejwell-known principle of “out of the frying-pan into the fire.” We might, at least we think, have drawn the line at ferrets, for while tboS3 who know their habits and nature assert that these are delicate little animals, and that they will never become so numerous as to threaten danger or inconvenience, the stoats and weasels are hardy enough to stand our severest winter weather in the coldest part of the country and will, it is to be feared, prove not only an unmitigated

nuisance but the cause of very serious loss. Not only will the hen-roosts suffer severely—that is a minor consideration —but there seems reason to fear that whereas the stoats have been introduced to clear out the rabbits in the interests of the sheep they will end by proving as dangerous to the sheep—and in a more direct way—as ever the rabbits were. One of these animals (i.e., a stoat) was captured the other day at Stoke, four miles from Nelson, and as no stoats have been turned out in that district it must have travelled thither all the way from Marlborough, where some of the species have been turned out on rabbit infested runs. Worse still, he was captured in flagrante delicto, having just indulged himself in the blood of a lamb which he had slain. Now if the lambs are to be killed by the stoats it is hard to see what will be gained by the driving out of the rabbits, and the rabbits disposed of and stoats substituted, the question will arise what are we to import to kill the stoats. Nay, what guarantee is there that the rabbits will be driven out at all—isn’t it indeed just possible that the stoats may prefer the sheep altogether? Anyhow, this whole business of importing and turning loose “ the natural enemies ” of the rabbits look uncommonly like a leap in the dark, to say the least of it; it is altogether too risky to be pleasant, and it would be well to desist until more is known about the matter, for it is better to be sure than sorry. We observe that a Napier exchange, the Daily Telegraph, concurs with us in this view and so also does our Christchurch contemporary, the Lyttelton Times, which concludes an article on the same subject with the following apposite remarks : —“ The farmers of Canterbury do not yet appear to see that this is a question which at all con-

cerns them. They are as unable to look ahead now as they were when the sparrow and the lark were being acclimatised in their midst. Yet the time will most assuredly come when they will find in the stoat and weasel more cruel curses than any acclimatised pests which now afflict this country. In England experience has shown thSt, whereas other small carnivora, such as, the pole-cat and marten, may be kept down and even exterminated, the exettions of a national army of gamekeepers and helpers have been entirely unable, not only to extirpate, but even to reduce in number, the ferocious creatures now to be encouraged to increase and multiply in this Island. The advocacy of their importation goes on the altogether false assumption that when they have done the particular work for which they are brought in they can be destroyed. In vain it is pointed out that this has not been found true in the case of all sorts of acclimatised pests both in this coiony and elsewhere. Nobody professes to know, or to have heard of, a means for the extirpation of stoats and weasels. We are to let them be turned loose and to trust to the consequences. The consequences will in all probp bility lie that the same men who sre asking the Government to help them with money in fighting the rabbits, will live to ask the colony to help them with money to fight the stoats and weasels.”