RABBITS IN AUSTRALIA.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1085, 9 February 1883, Page 4

RABBITS IN AUSTRALIA.

The stock inspector of New South Wales, in a report on the rabbit post, says:— In this Colony already, the owners ■ot three or four static s have spent L3OOO, others up to i 2000, and other en ms ranging from LIOOO down ward*, ■and 1 am sorry to say with generally 'comparatively little permanent effect A great many of the owners in the infested country are now keeping men ■employed all the year round searching for and destroying rabbits. On some stations as many as 30 hands are employed at this work at one time, on others 26, on others 20, 15, 12, and 10, accompanied by drays, teams, and .packs of dogs. The rabbits have ruined many owners in all the colonies in which they have obtained a footing, while the amount spent in fighting the pest and loss through their destroying the pasture and crops is enormous On one property alons (the Messrs Robertson’s. df Colae) about L40,(I00 was laid out in clearing it of rabi its, and putting a stone wall 3ft deep in the ground round it; and other owners, also in the Western districts of Victoria, with properties of 8000, 10,000, 15,000, 20,000, and 30,000 nets, are spending annually sums v *WPg from Li'ooo to L3OGO in marfly keeping the rabbits down; while in the Wimraera district, so far as the Crown lands are concerned, it may be said that the labiate have to a large Extent taken possession ot the country; for runs that at one time curried 50,000 sheep do not now keep 60t,0 In fact, it is stated by those whose opinion L to be relied upon, that the rabbit pest has already cost Viqtom between L 4 000,000 a d L5,000,G00 sterling; and as it is still spreading there, and will, if not speedily checked, soon be all over the ‘Colony, the amount mentioned is nothing to what the pest will ulti■mutely cost that Colony.