Monopoly of Native Animals.

Hokitika Guardian, 21 January 1922, Page 4

Monopoly of Native Animals.

AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT’S ACTION. SYDNEY, Jan. 11. liie Federal Government has recently frallied a long list of creatures that call Wily be exported from the CWhinonwealth Under permit. The idea is to make fuller use of Australia's monopoly of certain types of anilhais. Nature has given to Australia and tlie neighbouring islands a complete “confer'’ in the Utdnotrdnies or egg-laying mammals, and one in marsupials, which Wool cl be coin pie tc il there wCrfe liot a few species in America. Nature whs good enough to give Australia also a monopoly of the eucalyptus and of the wattle, but the unrestricted export of seeds has destroped that. The ideU of the ZoblbgiCal Board bf Control, ati idea which has apparently been adopted by the Commonwealth, is that Australia should Wake tlie most of her natural monopoly.

As a corollary to nationalisation, those interested iii the development of our fauiiistic monopoly are pressing for a Biological survey of Australia. They urge that this is just as necessary as tlie geological sui-vey, of which the claims have been so ably pressed by iSi Edgeworth, David. it i« quite possible, as one instance, that opossum farming might be made profitable ifi parts of Australia. There is a proposal on fool in Tasmania to set aside an area 0f.250 square miles, at Cradle Mountain, as a reserve, and to combine a carefully controlled and studied exploitation of the fur-hearing native animals, and others of commercial value, with their protection from indiscriminate and unregulated destruction. There is room for many experiments of this kind.