Phillips.— 0;? Babbit-disease. 429' 



Akt. LVII. — Rabbit-disease in the Wairaraim. 



By Coleman Phillips. 



[Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 27th June, 1888.] 



I WISH to place on record the facts connected with the out- 

 break of rabbit-disease in the South Wairarapa, and the 

 methods by which the rabbit-pest was conquered in that 

 district, as a guide for other places, especially insular lands of 

 the globe. 



Early in the year 1884, finding that our poisoning opera- 

 tions to reduce the pest were proving futile, "and not caring to 

 erect rabbit-proof fencing around my land to protect myself 

 from my neighbours, I determined upon calling the settlers 

 together for the purpose of simultaneously taking proper 

 measures to grapple with the evil. The pest had been worst 

 with me during the years 1881-83, but by 1884 I had per- 

 sonally managed to get it down so far as my own run was 

 concerned. The settlers met upon the 19th April, 1884. A 

 voluntary system of simultaneous action was resolved upon, 

 and I am pleased to be able to say now, in the year 1888, 

 that the pest has been thoroughly conquered over the whole 

 district. The rabbits now only require watching, as they are 

 watched in any country of Europe. 



The measures the neighbours adopted were simultaneous 

 poisoning with phosphorized grain and the simultaneous turn- 

 ing-out of the natural enemy, chiefly the ferret. A few of us 

 had been previously poisoning, and breeding and turning out 

 ferrets, and some of us the cTomestic cat ; but the Hon. Mr. 

 Waterhouse was the first to turn out a few ferrets, some four 

 or five years previously. In 1886 Mr. E. J. Eiddiford pre- 

 ferred turning out stoats and weasels upon the land, and I 

 think he turned out two to three hundred (one hundred stoats 

 and two hundred weasels). From 1878 to 1888 — say in the 

 ten years of the pest — the measures taken, therefore, to 

 grapple with the evil were hunting and shooting with dog and 

 gun, poisoning with phosphorized grain, and the turning-out 

 of cats, ferrets, stoats, and weasels. Seeing that we were 

 turning out the natural enemy, I induced the settlers not to- 

 make use of traps. At the present moment so little is this, 

 question understood that a reference to Mr. Bayley's (the 

 Chief Eabbit Inspector of the colony) annual report for 1888 

 will show that the Government and every Eabbit Inspector 

 are willingly allowing the use of traps in every other district 

 of the colony. Of course this is almost fatal to the natural 

 enemy. The use of traps must be absolutely prohibited. 

 With regard to rabbit-proof fencing, I always thought it a 



