STOATS AND WEASELS.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 875, 22 July 1910, Page 8

STOATS AND WEASELS.

PROTECTION PROPOSED TO BE REMOVED. . An Acclimatisation Societies' Conference ; without; a reference to the depredations jof stoats and weasels would be like '"Hamlet" without the Prince of Denjmark. This year the delegates. werd .pretty unanimous on the point that , j these "pernicious animals/' which were ,introduced to exterminate' the rabbits .that threatened to decimate the whole j country, had turned out to bo as great '.an evil as tht. rabbits w-jre. Several re;mits were received from different dis!tricts emphasising the necessity of dealting wita thcssi peals in the direction of '.removing the existing protective laws •wider which they have flourished. Wai'■mate (Canterbury), and North Canterbury .wished the protection removed, nnd-Wost-'land moved: "That - the Government be asked to remove protection from stoats and weasel 6, and that it be a recommen- ' dation to the Government that these be declared vermin in Westland, and that a bonus of one shilling per head bo paid for every one killed in Westland." Mr. P. O'Began stigmatised the introduction of-stoats and weasels as.""the most monumental example of official wooden-heade'dness on record." If the societies were going to do . anything at all they should make it general. It should be made illegal to import or-liberate any oi these animals-in any. part of New Zealand. The time had passed when it was possible to copo with the pests. He ' knew of districts where rabbits, weasels, and stoats lived side by side—a happy family. Babbits could only bo kept down by poison and close settlement. It was out of the question';to think of protecting native game so long as stoats and weasels vrero in the country. That. could only be done by putting .the game on island sanctuaries/and making it a penal offence to destroy them. The'valleys and hills of the West Coast, covered with the " densest bush, were naturdl sanctuaries for native birds. The rabbit never got • foothold there, but the stoats and weasels had penetrated into the remotest parts. Mr. J. J. Devine (Wellington) referred to the depredations of the weasels in the vicinity of the . Wellington _ Society's game farm. On his motion, it was resolved:—" "That all protection be removed from stoats, weaselß, and ferrets, in such districts or portion of district as any acclimatisation society or other controlling authority may determine."