AMERICAN VIEW OF N.Z. RABBIT NUISANCE-
New Zealand’s rabbit-skin trade has attracted the attention of the United States Consul at Auckland, and it certainly has points of interest. Ten years ago there were only about 36,000 skins exported, and now there are 8,500,000, with a value of about half a million dollars. Still more striking is the fact that twenty years ago there was not a rabbit on the island, A few pairs of grey rabbits were taken there by a gentleman hard driven for game to shoot, and so prolific were they that in a few years their descendants had eaten up a great part of the vegetation, destroying millions of dollars’ worth of property, causing sheep to die of starvation by thousands, and threatening to ruin agriculture. The colonists employed dogs to kill them, but they still multiplied faster than they could be destroyed ; then they resorted to ferrets, weasels, and poison, and this latter was effectual, though scores of thousands of sheep fell victims to it. It is believed that eighty million rabbits a year are killed in New Zealand by professional rabbit hunters with their appliances. Making the best of the misfortune, the skins of the pests were turned into an article of commerce as material for furs, and one of the markets is the United States, which fact has caused the Consul to tell the story. It reads, however, rather more like a chapter of Jules Verne than like an ordinary consular report.—New York Sun.
PAYING SHEEP RATESThe New Zealand Gazette, announces as follows ; “ Colonial Secretary’s Office, Wellington, 10th August, 1882. His Excellency the Administrator of the Government has been pleased to revoke the authority given on the 14th March, 1879, to Chief Inspectors of sheep appointed under ‘ The Sheep Act, 1878,’ to receive the sheep rate, and to authorise postmasters at any post office where there is a money order office to be the persons to receive the sheep rate under the provisions of the said Act.— Thomas Dick.”
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Bibliographic details
Patea Mail, 28 August 1882, Page 3
Word Count
335AMERICAN VIEW OF N.Z. RABBIT NUISANCE- Patea Mail, 28 August 1882, Page 3
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