Otago Provincial Gazette – 1876 – No. 1024

Page 307

✨ Rabbit Nuisance Report

the termination of the present leases, the country is again sought to be let. The proposition that by cutting up the large holdings into 5,000 acre lots, and thereby settling a larger population, is stated to be met by the fact that the present holder of say 50,000 acres, having means at command, employs from 15 to 18 men whose sole occupation is to exterminate rabbits, pays them well for their exertions, finding them in most cases with dogs, ammunition, and sometimes in provisions, and yet realises the difficulty mastering him. Supply the place of this one proprietor by 10 men, and we have a smaller population by six or eight to work out the problem at their own expense, support their families, fence in their holdings, which, after all, as the plains and uplands are already freeholds, can be little ease than summer country, and pay the Government a higher rental than that obtained from the present lessees.

INCREASE OF THE RABBIT.

The rapid increase of the rabbit, owing to the favorable circumstances of climate, soil, and shelter, coupled with the absence of natural enemies inimical to its development, clothes the danger of its presence with a palpable significance, seeing that where climatic influences are not as felicitous, the fecundity of the rabbit is the theme of naturalists.

SIMULTANEOUSNESS OF ACTION.

Under these circumstances simultaneousness of action on the part of the Government, pastoral tenants, and freeholders, would seem to become a necessity. The first, to ensure a future benefit in increased rentals on the expiration of the present leases; the second, to enable them to secure the accumulations of past thrift, industry, and enterprise; the last, to hand down to posterity an improved and unimpaired estate.

VIII.—On looking over this report, before transmission to your Honor, a fear has arisen that the facts we have adduced, and the inferences we have drawn from them, may be regarded as having been too darkly tinted; and yet, on recalling what we personally observed, the conversations which we have held, the accounts which we have been allowed to examine; and when we remember the agreement of converging statements respecting any particular point, we feel we should be doing our informants injustice did we not faithfully record what we have heard, and that we should be doing your Honor and ourselves an injustice did we not submit, what we have ourselves seen, and what we believe. That the case is one which causes much anxiety is beyond all doubt, and we feel assured that if the public estate is to be rescued from serious depreciations, and private interests from calamities and losses—in no small measure the result of an outside visitation of, at one time, an apparently insignificant but now of an extremely serious character—this can only be obtained by the application of a remedy which shall be immediate, compulsory, and universal.

J. RICHARDSON.

WALTER H. PEARSON.

AREA OF RUNS.

PROVINCE OF SOUTHLAND.

Run.	Gross Area.	Alienated.	Leasehold.
112	46,250	19,393	26,947
116	26,000	16,555	9,445
119A	25,000	16,535	8,465
119B	22,000	18,540	3,460
133	11,750	4,754	6,996
135	16,120	9,861	6,259
135A	5,350	860	4,490
142	2,900	493	2,497
143	24,000	4,838	19,162
143A	11,400	1,347	10,053
143B	11,600	2,739	8,870
146	21,150	12,969	8,181
148	56,185	34,330	21,855
149	22,800	5,912	16,888
150B	12,800	6,963	5,837
153	26,990	7,382	19,518
154	23,500	6,677	16,823
154A	2,480	1,592	888
156A1	15,000	4,360	10,640
156A2	13,490	4,815	7,585
156B1	11,200	9,659	1,541
156B2	3,200	7,220	980
159	24,600	15,407	9,193
165	19,600	8,750	10,250
166A	25,200	2,419	22,781
166B	10,000	2,260	7,740
173	40,000	820	39,180
176A	21,270	8,318	12,952
176B	17,280	—	17,280
181	65,000	44,880	23,120
187	58,000	7,912	50,088
188	39,500	10	39,490
190	20,300	670	19,630
190A	1,080	—	1,080
191	25,970	1,479	23,591
191A	4,204	614	3,590
195A	26,980	13,150	13,830
195B	16,900	8,381	7,619
198	37,000	1,150	35,850
207	13,200	6,023	7,177
207A	6,500	250	6,250
207B	10,950	10,120	830
208	26,180	—	26,180
214	29,000	8,804	20,196
300B	7,800	1,250	6,550
302	26,636	2,583	24,053
302A	6,720	98	6,622
302B	7,200	—	7,200
329	9,500	330	9,170
352A	30,000	430	29,570
352B	10,000	—	10,000
394	22,500	690	21,810
395	3,800	—	3,800
396	15,000	7,272	7,728
417	1,900	—	1,900
418	4,000	—	4,000
419	120	50	70
	1,996,475	348,725	747,750
415	44,640	—	—
397	27,360	—	—
	500,935	1,000	Stewart Island
	279,444	—	Bush on pastoral country, unoccupied
	1,948,854	—	Total area of Province out of Hundreds.