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The State Barrier Fence of Western Australia

CENTENARY 1901 - 2001

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REPORT ON RABBIT BRANCH

The Under Secretary for Agriculture

The three rabbit-proof fences have now been constructed by the Public Works Department and handed over to me for maintenance.

The first or No. 1 fence starts at Starvation Boat Harbour, on the Great Australian Bight, 70 miles West of Esperance, and runs almost due North, crossing the Goldfields line near Burracoppin, and then right up to the ninety-mile beach, on the Indian Ocean, about twenty miles North of Condon, a total length of 1,155 miles.

The No. 2 fence, which was next constructed when it was found that rabbits had got ahead of the No. 1 fence, starts at Point Ann, 130 miles East of Albany, and runs in a Northerly direction slightly bearing Westward, crossing the Goldfields line near Cunderdin, to Yalgoo, when it turns Eastward and joins the No. 1 fence at Gum Creek, 320 miles North of Burracoppin. This fence is 724 miles in length.

The No. 3 fence starts from the No. 2 fence, about 20 miles North of Yalgoo, and runs due West to the Indian Ocean, which it joins at Bluff Point, a total length of 171 miles.

The total length of fencing now constructed is 2,050 miles, and this completes the scheme of fencing approved of to the present time.

The maintenance staff consists of a Chief Inspector, 4 Sub-inspectors, who have about 500 miles of fencing in their charge, 25 boundary riders, or about one boundary rider to each 100 miles of fencing. In the extreme North where the natives are dangerous there are 300 miles of fencing, where the boundary riders go in pairs as it is not safe for one man to travel alone. There are at present three repairing gangs grubbing and making some necessary repairs, but after this year these will not be required only under exceptional circumstances. There are two camel-drivers, who distribute rations, and three rabbiters employed in destroying rabbits.

Early in January a gang of men will be employed to the North of Northampton in trying to eradicate some colonies of rabbits that have found their way to the coastal sandhills there.

During the year rabbits were reported as having appeared inside the No. 2 fence at Coorow, on the Midland Railway; rabbiters were immediately sent there and the rabbits destroyed, and examination made some nine months after failed to find any fresh traces of rabbits.

Rabbits were reported at Mullewa also inside the No. 2 fence, and it is believed these have also been eradicated.

The only known rabbits inside the No. 2 fence are those North of Northampton, and it is hoped these will be completely destroyed before the summer is over.

Between the No. 1 and No. 2 fences in some places rabbits are fairly numerous, especially in the Northern portion, but very few have as yet reached the No. 2 fence, only three having been reported as being caught in the traps. The tendency seems for the rabbits to make North more than West.

In the North-West to the North of the No. 3 fence and West of the No. 1 fence there are rabbits that have got ahead of the No. 1 fence; they have been reported almost 100 miles West of the No. 1 fence in the Upper Gascoyne District. Settlers in this North-West District will need to take prompt and active measures if they wish to keep the pest down.

There seems to be a tendency on the part of many settlers to expect the Government to destroy the rabbits on their properties, instead of starting to do it themselves as soon as rabbits are discovered as they are supposed to do under the Rabbit Act. The Act is being strictly enforced, and will be, and all offenders will be prosecuted.

The fences are all in good order, well maintained, and, as a rule, inspected twice a week, except in the far North, where they are inspected once a week.

On the outside of No. 1 fence rabbits are very thick in places, and in some parts they have eaten everything edible, and thousands have died of starvation. They have been reported as far North as Mount Cecilia, or within 70 miles of the Kimberley border.

The height of the netting above ground averages from 2 feet 10 inches to 3 feet, and the depth underground 6 to 8 inches, except where the ground is sandy, and then it is 12 inches below the surface. There is a top wire 12 inches above the netting, in the South this is mostly a plain wire, but where there is stock a barb wire has been used, and a number of settlers have been given permission to put in an extra barb wire between the top wire and the netting, and thus making the fence dog-proof.

Private individuals under certain conditions are allowed to join their fences to the Government fence and use it as a boundary, and for such part of the Government fence an annual rent of 25s per mile or part of a mile is charged.

There is no traffic allowed under any circumstances on the track along the fences, and any persons found trespassing are prosecuted. The damage done to the fence by teamsters and the travelling public in vehicles was so great in the way of knocking down posts and damaging the netting that the most stringent measures had to be adopted.

At distances along the fence of about five miles yard traps are erected for catching rabbits, and in some places the rabbits were so numerous that as many as 1,500 to 1,800 rabbits would be caught in 50 miles in these traps in a month. Of late in the Southern part of the No. 1 fence the rabbits have been comparatively scarce, and in some traps only 20 or 30 a month have been caught.

To the Eastward of the No. 1 fence, South of Burracoppin, rabbits have decreased in numbers in an extraordinary degree in the past two years, and where thousands were to be found a year or two ago there are scarcely any to be seen now. At one time they were so numerous that they practically ate themselves out and starved, and fresh contingents have not yet arrived from the East.

Between the Nos. 1 and 2 fences rabbits are found in small colonies from the coast right up to the Northern end of the fence, and for a time rabbiters were employed trying to keep these in check, but as it is impossible to get the last two or three rabbits, the majority of which are always does, it was decided not to continue the rabbiters, as to be of any service it would require an army of men, and as more bucks were caught than does it was only increasing the number of young ones.

No rabbits have been found to the West of the No. 2 fence in the agricultural districts, although some have followed the Murchison River down, and reached the coast at the South of the Murchison River at its mouth, and have then travelled as far South as Lynton, which is about 20 miles North of Northampton. Rabbiters are employed there at present, but it is found they will not be able to exterminate them, as they have gone into the thick scrub on the sand hills along the coast.

To the North of the No. 2 fence and West of the No. 1 fence in the Murchison and Gascoyne country, a good many rabbits have found their way, and in one or two instances they have actually made warrens, but from some cause or other these have mostly been deserted within a year or two.

Settlers should refrain from killing iguanas, which are most deadly enemies of the rabbit. I have found five good-sized young rabbits inside a large iguana that had been accidentally killed by the buggy wheels going over it. Dingoes also kill large numbers, and so do the large hawks.

The Government has lately decided to give the Rodier system of dealing with rabbits a trial in this State. That is, killing off all the doe rabbits possible, and allowing the buck rabbits to go free. This system is so called after a squatter in New South Wales, who was the first to introduce it and who practised it on his own station near Cobar, and was able to deal with the rabbits in his run at a very small expense, while his neighbours were almost ruined by the pest.

Where the bucks are plentiful and the does scarce the males tease and worry the females to such an extent that they become sterile and do not breed, often they die and the bucks kill all the young ones they can find. In poisoning and trapping as a rule more bucks are killed than does, as from the habit that the bucks have of resorting to one place to pass their excrements it is easy to trap them, and a decrease in the bucks mean more prolific does.

It is recommended then that all persons who catch rabbits alive should allow the bucks to go free, cutting off say one ear so that in case of shooting they can be identified.

The principle is scientifically correct, and if a large number of does are destroyed the remaining bucks will do more to keep the rabbit pest down than any other measure that can be adopted. For this reason settlers destroying rabbits are recommended to try and catch all they can alive instead of poisoning or shooting.

In speaking of the prospects of the rabbits becoming a serious pest in this State I am judging from the experience of 25 years in various parts of Australia, and from a close study of the question for some years past. With the present fences kept in good order, regularly patrolled by boundary riders, proper inspection, and the co-operation of the settlers all over the State, I am thoroughly convinced that the farmers have but little to fear and those inside of or to the West of the Nos. 1 and 2 fences, practically nothing.

That there are rabbits between the two fences, and a very considerable number, cannot be denied, and the farmers there will have a continuous, although not necessarily severe, fight to keep the pest down. The fight may be maintained by the individual with success, but it will cost him much more than if he co-operates with his neighbours. Wire netting in the holdings will cope with the rabbit and be expensive. Wire netting in groups of holdings will cope equally well with the rabbit, and at only a small proportion of the expense that would attach if each individual provided wire netting for himself; for instance, with rabbit-proof netting at £27 per mile, for the netting alone it would cost for a 1,000-acre farm, 100 chains x 100 chains, £135.

If 10 people joined together to net 10,000 acres the cost of the netting would be £740, or to each of them £74, as against £135. If 100,000 acres were netted in, the cost of the netting would be £1,350 or £13 10s for each 1,000 acres, and that would only represent a block of land 12½ miles x 12½ miles. Thus, by co-operation, instead of the individual having to pay for the netting to fence in his 1,000 acres, £135, if 100,000 acres were fenced in by a combination of settlers, the netting would only come to £13 10s for each 1,000 acres.

I would, therefore, strongly recommend that before any person purchased netting to fence in his holding he should try if he could not get one or more of the settlers in the district to join with him – the more the better – and thus have the work done at the minimum of cost.

But even if the rabbits did get in and become the pest they are elsewhere, the farmer can always deal with them. It is the large run holder who will suffer most, especially those who have large areas of poor country where grazing capacity is so small that it would not pay to fence in their holdings: these are those who will suffer most, and it is the squatters who have suffered most in all the Eastern States. In land that suits the rabbit up to the present the destruction of rabbits by poison, trapping, shooting, etc., on such places has not been successful without the use of netting, and so far as I can see, the most likely way and the cheapest to deal with them in our Northern pastoral country will be by the pastoralists carrying out the Rodier system for all it is worth.

It has, however, yet to be proved that the country will suit the rabbit, and observations and reports from the settlers in the North throws a certain amount of doubt on the subject.

If every settler and pastoralist accepts the fact that he is responsible for keeping his holding free from rabbits and acts up to it, I think Western Australia has but little to fear.

I would like to mention that within the past few weeks I went along a portion of the rabbit-proof fence to the North of Burracoppin where there are rabbits at the present time, and I saw a good illustration of the good the rabbit fence is doing. On the outside of the No. 1 fence there was not a blade of grass to be seen; on the inside there was any amount of grass from three to six inches high and any amount of old feed, while on the outside of the fence the old feed had been eaten down close to the ground, and there was not enough to feed even a bandicoot. A better illustration of the value of the fence it would be difficult to find.

ALEX CRAWFORD,

Acting Chief Inspector of Rabbits.


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