SHEEP LOSSES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 August 1939, Page 8

SHEEP LOSSES

HEAVY ON BANKS PENINSULA AS RESULT OF RECENT STORM. SERIOUS LAMBING MORTALITY. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. Sheep losses on Banks Peninsula in the snow storm of three weeks ago may total something like ten thousand head. The full extent of losses is not. yet known, as gullies are still deeply covered by drifts, but already, from individual bays, the loss has been over a thousand head. Eastern bays, such as Little Akaroa and Pigeon Bay, O’Kain’s and Le Bon’s,' appear to have suffered worst, getting the full force of the storm. At Little AkarOa, a loss of between 1,000 and 1,200 head has already been disclosed and more dead sheep are being found every day. Pigeon Bay reported the same figures. In a survey made of the Peninsula this morning, losses of up to and over 200 head in individual flocks were common, representing a death rate of 25 per cent in extreme cases. One farmer, on the hills over Little Akaroa, lost 240 sheep out of a flock of 950. In the western bays and sheltered reaches round Akaroa Harbour losses were not so heavy. The feature of the losses is the effect the storm is having on lambing. Lambs are being born dead and the mortality in the eastern bays will be one of the heaviest oh record. Cattle suffered also in the storm As the drifts have cleared away, grim reminders of the intense cold have been revealed. At Pigeon Bay cattle were found frozen stiff in a standing position. Sheep carrying a good deal of condition also died as they stood.