RUNHOLDER’S APPEAL FOR CATS

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 15, 13 October 1942, Page 3

RUNHOLDER’S APPEAL FOR CATS

Comment By Minister Commenting last night on a report that an Alexandra runholder had offered to buy 500 eats at 4/- a head to help nd his land of rabbits, the Minister ot Internal Affairs, Mr. Parry, said if the runholder' carried out his plan with the cats it would be a poor reward to that large body. of men and women of the Dominion who had along many years vied with one another in efforts to protect New Zealand’s native birds. Protection of stoats and- weasels, he said, hud been removed and a price fixed for those animals and other vermin killed expressly with .the object of saving the country s ■ much-prized bird-life. Any dweller in the country where there was native bush was able, he said, to testify to the extent to which domestic cats, turned loose to become wild, attacked the native birds. The toll made by wild cats on birds was so considerable today that fields’ officers of State departments had been instructed to shoot the pests, by which designation they could alone be classified. "With all bird-lovers,” Mr. Barry added, “I appeal to the Alexandra runholder to adopt, not cats, but one or all of the other well-known methods of ridding his land of rabbits. I feel he will realize the value and the asset native birds are to the country.”