TO OUST A PEST.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 2474, 31 August 1922, Page 3

TO OUST A PEST.

CONFLICT OVER RABBIT NUISANCE. A conference of those interested in ousting the rabbit pest is suggested by the Director-General of Agriculture in his report. Dr. Reakes says that conflict has arisen between those interested in the commercial side of the rabbit trade and the department’s officertogether with settlers who are in earnest in rabbit destruction. Hence a position has been reached where a new policy which will cut the present knot of conflicting interests needed to be determined upon. It must be based on bringing about final eradication of the pest to such a degree as is practically possible. How best to do ibis under present circumstances constituted a very definite problem. In working out the new policy it was suggested that conflicting interests should be brought together for discussion. . The main points to be dealt with would appear to be : (1) The adaptation of the present lucrative trade in rabbit skins to a system practically and financially in the gradual eradication of the pest so far as practically possible; (2) stringent control regulation of rabbit trapping; (3) the formation outside rabbit board districts of set tiers’ rabbit associations for bringing about simultaneous poisoning and concerted action generally: (4) the establishment of a system under which rabbit-netting fences' will be utilised with Government co-opera-tion to the fullest extent rendered possible by financial considerations; (5) a readjustment of the departmental system of inspection.