Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-05-20
A PEST,

New York sun: Everybody knows what
a terrible pest the rabbit has become In
Australasia. This little animal is an i'm
ported evil in the great British islands of
the southern seas, was brought from Eng
land and turned loose to multiply in his
new habitat. Unfortunately. he found
his new surrounding most congenial and
so he has overspread all the habitable
parts of Australia for he did not exist
among them until he n New Zealand
and has driven the people almost fran
tic. for nothing flourishes on a grander
scale than the rabbit in his new home,
and he has actually endangered the exist
ence of other grass-eating animals. The
greatest efforts have been put forth to
him, but thus far without
success. There is probably no other ami
NAL that supplies the markets of the
world with so many skins in a year as the
rabbits of Australia and New Zealand.
About 5000, 900 squirrel skins of Siberia
are sent to Europe annually, but in one
year as many as $500, 900 rabbit skins
have been exported from Australasia, and
still there seems to be no abatement of
the nuisance.
This is an evil that sportsmen unwit-
tingly inflicted upon the new country. 1t
is we'll known that the Australasian
tries are not rich in native fauna. After
the British settlers began to arrive they
gradually filled up the gaps in the local
list of animal life by the importation of
new wild and domestic species. Sports
nieis introduced the deer, roebuck, hare
and RABBIT. The pig was brought into
Australia and New Zealand. and a part
of his numerous progeny. escaping before
wild. a7iss thousands of wild pigs are
killed every year ~ the thickets. Many
of the streams were stocked With salmon,
tr6;:.t and other species of fish from. the
mother country. Bird life was particu-
spafrows, blacKbirds, thrushes. crows,
larks and finches We're introduced from
England, q4ails from California, and the
gray partridge and pheasant from China.
They have all become acclimated, have
multiplied prodigiously, and in Australia
today, a land of most peculiar and scanty
native fauna, the visitor from Europe and
America hears the same birds warbling
in the woods and encounters the same
domestic and wild animals as at home.
All of these varieties of animal life
were a blessing to the country except the
rabbit. h man who suggests a practi-
cal scheme for getting rid of this nuis-
ance will make his fortune. A few years
ago the government of New South Wales
offered a reward of 1925 900 for a feasible
method of thorough determination. This
tempting offer stimulated the ingenious
and the cranks all over the world. and
1880 schemes were submitted to the gov
but not one of them proved to
be practicable, and the reward has never
been paid.
Efforts are continually making, how
ever, to mitigate the evil, and among the
devices that are beginning to be employ
is a fence that is said to be rabbit
proof, the animal not being able to get
over, under or through it. A few notes
are given in the last animal report of the
Department Of Lands, New South Wales,
regarding the progress of the colonial
government in it's efforts to cope with the
rabbit pest by the erection Of a rabbit
The first fence built was in 1897,
and it extended from the Queensland bor-
der to the Mamoi river, a distance of
about rs miles. Since then the govern
ment has kept up the work of fence build
ing, and the number Of miles of rabbit
proof fencing now erected in the colony
is 1890. The report is accompanied by a
map, which shows that the fence has
been extended along the entire western
border of the colony and along two-thirds
of the northern boundary. The purpose
to be to extend a rabbit fence
clear around the colony to it's sea 'front.'
age. 1t is a modern China wall, erected
to keep out, not barbarians like the
ancient Mongols, but hordes Of animal
pests that threaten to overrun the land.