The Feilding Star. Oroua & Kiwitea Counties Gazette. Pilblislied Daily. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1894.

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 99, 20 October 1894, Page 2

The Feilding Star. Oroua & Kiwitea Counties Gazette. Pilblislied Daily. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1894.

"6TOATS AND WEASLES PROTECTED." «, The fact of the Department of Agri culture bringing so prominently be. fore the public th» clause in the Rab bit Nuisance Act, 1882, referring to the capture, sale, or disposal of any animal declared to be a natural enemy of the rabbit, is of vast importance to farmers and agriculturists in this part of the colony. The schedule includes ferrets, cats, stoats, weasels, and mongoose. We can quite understand the necessity for the rigid enforcement of the 29th clause of the Act, in localities where the too abundant presence of the rabbit has become a nuisance ; but where it is the stoats and weasels which are objectionable and the rabbit does not obtain at all, while the lambs of sheep farmers or the domes tic fowls of small farmers are destroyed by these ferocious little brutes, then it certainly would appear to be a hardship if a person suffered under the Act for killing them off in mere self protection. It will be observed that cats are also protected. Well, we know of several instances where cats have deolared an active war against stoats in this district, quite regardless of the fact that they are scheduled as tho allies of the latter. Np doubt the Department of Agriculture has heard with some alarm the outcry which has been raised in many parts of the colony ugainet the " natural enemy " of the rabbit, and now rushes to the protection of these pests, quite regardless of the hardships which may be inflicted on individuals.