STOATS

Hokitika Guardian, 4 July 1929, Page 5

STOATS

DESTROYERS OF NATIVE BIRDS.

PROTECTION CONDEMNED

CHRISTCHURCH, July, 3

“ Tile biggest pest ever introduced into this country ” is an expression which, from time to time has been applied to several animals and birds imported into New Zealand. The rabbit has had many a harsh word spokdn against him, the sparrow, blackbird ail’d starling are unwelcome immigrants/"in many quarters, while the red deer is not regarded as /altogether an ifnmixett blessings* But if ever there was ail, animal which deserved the title it is the stoat, in the opinion of AIr f ,J). v

Hope, Curator ; at the North 1 Canterbury Acclimatisation* • Society’sJiatch-

Mr Hope has had a long experience with this rodent, and it has not impressed '’him. Originally'j brought to New Zealand to combat .the rabbit, it . failed to do so. Far, from being enemies the rabbit and the stoat are quite good friends, so Air Hope' says. During his fifteen years in tlie back country he often saw rabbits and stoats living on quite amicable terms in the same burrow. They killed young rabbits and a few grown ones, but they could never be considered .as rabbit exterminators The high commercial value of his own skin find proved the undoing of the bunny, until to-day the rabbit-nuisaneb was no longer a: serious one.^ Indeed dft. many areas infested with vabbus. 1 a few years ago very few were to be foutiQ to-day, so, even if the stoat was a ral} r bit destroyer the need for his protection by law: had disappeared. Yet anyone who killed a stoat to-day was ljiir, ble to a heavy fine. He would sayrtliat killing stoats was.doing a.,valuableipubr lie service. r'

Though he did not harm rabbits . much, the stoat was, nevertheless, an arch-destroyer and this was Air Hope's chief grievance against him. His taste ran towards. feathered game, and he would always eat these if he could get them, in preference to animals. Often - had Air Hope seen, even in the Gardens, a stoat run strainght up the trunk, of a ‘tree, take a young bird from a nest, and run down again. With some kinds'of birds this was doing good, bilt the trouble was that be usually preyed , on the more ones. For the most part these were the native birds and this rodent must be considered ,as one of the biggest . destroyers lof - bird life. The scarcity of the kiwi* and the wea—both land birds—-could ,be4ftrgely ascribed to his depredation S/Wh#, too, was responsible for editing tlie eggs ofthe Californian' quail and destroying their.young? he asked. . 1 Anyone who cared to observe would! soon discover what a menace the stoat was, yet the Government continued to . protect him when it should'be doing all possible to v-.