Abstract
WILD rabbits have become so numerous in many parts of England that considerable alarm has been expressed by farmers and in the public press at the damage done to crops, pastures and young trees. The University of London Animal Welfare Society has for some years made a special study of the subject. It has now taken a useful and timely step in reprinting in Great Britain, by permission of the New South Wales authorities, a brochure entitled “The Rabbit Menace in Australia in 1933 and the Way Out”, by David G. Stead, formerly special rabbit menace commissioner to the Government of New South Wales. The booklet brings strong confirmation to the views previously promulgated by the Society to the effect that the wild rabbit, considered as stock, does not pay, since the damage done by it far exceeds the price received by the farmer; that the trapping industry increases the stock of rabbits instead of diminishing it, and that control of the rabbit-population can be most efficiently (as well as most humanely) carried out by the use of calcium cyanide or similar products yielding hydrocyanic acid gas. The Society has issued several other publications on the subject of rabbit-control.
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The Rabbit Menace. Nature 136, 430 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/136430c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/136430c0