Damage, Stock Losses In Cass Area

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30953, 8 January 1966, Page 1

Damage, Stock Losses In Cass Area

Trigger-happy shooters are causing serious damage in the Cass area. “I know what I would do to them if I caught them,” Mr R. Bell, who has both Mount White Station and Avoca, a property in the Cass area, said yesterday. “I bet they wouldn’t come back,” he said.

At Avoca shooters had used high-powered shells to wreck hurdles which were used for dipping, “And they have shot holes in the woolshed,” said Mr Bell.

“In one room of the house at Avoca they set up bottles on the mantlepiece and used them for target practice. A shotgun was fired in another room.”

On the Mount. White property a major problem existed, Mr Bell said. The property lay at the dead end of a 20-mile public road, and parts of the Mount White station lay on either side of the road.

Shooters had shot at stock now and again, but it was difficult to prove that that was what had happened. Mr Bell said he suspected that he had lost a quite valuable run bulk but as he had not found the beast for some time it had been impossible to say definitely how it died. “But judging from the position in which it was found I’m almost certain it was shot,” he said. People trespassed on the property and if they did nothing worse they disturbed the stock. At Avoca, a property on which he did not live, people had broken into the homestead and musterers’ huts. “They used the food which had been left for us when we went down to do some work on the property,” he said.

His suspicions were that most of the damage occurred during week-ends. He also thought he was losing some stock because of the shooters.

“They would shoot at anything,” he said.

The police had told him he would have to put up a lot of notices, but that had not seemed to be much good to him, Mr Bell said. Mrs G. Urquhart, of Flock

Hill station, said some of their sheep were “missing.” “However, the biggest problem is the cattle that are shot.

"A couple of years ago we lost two young horses, but that was spotlighters,” she said.

“Many people cross our property after deer and pig and never ask permission. “They break into shepherds’ huts, eat all the food, burn all the wood, and generally leave them in a mess,” she said.