THE RABBIT NUISANCE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2200, 14 August 1886, Page 3

THE RABBIT NUISANCE.

TO THK EMTOtt. Sm,— Will you kindly allow me space to say a few words on the rabbit question. My letter to Mi Oklliatn, which appeared in your issue of the 7th inst., was not intended for publication, but simply to strengthen the inspector^ hands, if necessary, in dealing with those landowners who are not taking their sh.ue of the work in destroying the rabbits. I thought that the letter might be useful in his hands to show them that some of the few who have been ferreting and shooting for some years, and who are now compelled by law to lay poison also, are complaining about the many who have done neither the one nor the other. 1 should have had no objection to its publication, howe\er, if it had not seemed to convey the impression that I was complaining of the number of rabbits still left, whereas I was really speaking of the apathy of those land-owners who, by harbouiing the labbits that are on their land, make the efforts of those who are killing them use-less. Your Te Awamutu 1 correspondent i> light in saymg that the rabbits have ee.iv;d to be the nuisance they were a few years ago, though there aie certainly some left still. Around my place there are not ten to bo found for every hundred we could get four years ago. My own opinion is, ns I told the inspector, that we were doing more good by systematically killing them for sale in Auckland, which of course is stopped now, than will be done by the phosphorated oats. Our friend bunny is too wide awake, I should think, to eat such nasty smelling and nastier tasting stuff while he can get a mouthful of anything: eUe. The poison might answer on a poor run, where they must eat it or starve, and where it can.do no harm, if it does not good, but in a comparatively thickly populated district like this, it can do harm. As you correspondent remarks, it lias killed some pigs and pheasants, and would destroy turkeys and fowls, if laid wh°-re they run. It «airpiises me that some of the haltstarved horses on the run, do uot lick it up, to end their miserable existence. But I am most in sympathy with your correspondent in his remarks regarding the proposed turning loose of weasels, ferrets &c in our midst. This plan, also, may suit the runholders, who are prepared to sacrifice everything to their wool clip, and I am convinced that in this district of small farms, we should find the remedy ten times worse than the disease, in a very short time. I think Sir Robert Stout was not far wrong in saying that the fox might do more good and less harm than the weasel tribe, and at any rate this can be Baid for Master Reynard: He only kills one fowl for each meal, while the others will kill a dozen for the sake of the blood. Already escaped ferrets have given us an idea of what they are capable of. One killed seven turkeys in one night, and another made in equally successful raid on a hen roost several miles from where it was lost. Besides, the fox is not quite so insidious in his attacks, and he would afford us a little sport for his keep. Let us raise our voices to persuade our revered legislators not to allow their love of something new so to overpower their wisdom as to turn this demon tribe loose among us. If you would only open the eyes of the ladies to the fact that ferrets are very partial to the pride of this district, viz., babies, lam sure wiser counsels would prevail.— l am, yours truly, J. C. Gkieuson. Queenwood, Alexandra, August 10th.

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