Their presence is not dictated by terrain but by the availability of prey. <\/p>\n
Driven by an instinctive need to hunt and reproduce, stoats are relentless in their pursuit, making them one of the most impactful introduced predators in the country.<\/p>\n
In 1913, the NZ Herald reported that stoats, along with hawks and weasels, were diminishing game birds and attacking lambs. <\/p>\n
It was only ducks that seemed to be outsmarting them, for reasons unknown!<\/p>\n
Below is a selection of historical stories from the New Zealand Herald (1913 and 1929), the North Otago Times (1930) and the Central Hawke\u2019s Bay Press (1945).<\/p>\n
Depredations by stoats<\/p>\n
New Zealand Herald, July 25, 1913<\/p>\n
Attacks made on lambs.<\/p>\n
[By telegraph.\u2014Special correspondent.]<\/p>\n
Wellington, Thursday. <\/p>\n
\u201cOur pests are still with us,\u201d said Mr. L. O. H. Tripp, president of the Acclimatisation Association at the opening of the annual conference yesterday. <\/p>\n
\u201cUnder the depredations of hawks, stoats, and weasels, our game birds are diminishing with the exception of ducks, which are holding their own.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I am wondering is, what will be the result when the birds are gone, so far as the stoat is concerned? <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the stoats have got rid of the birds and the rabbits, are they going to tackle the lambs? <\/p>\n
\u201cSheep farmers have told me that they are quite satisfied that they have lost some of their lambs through the attacks of stoats. <\/p>\n
\u201cLambs have been picked up dead with the typical punctures behind the neck, and shepherds have reported seeing stoats hanging on to the lambs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stoats and rats<\/p>\n
New Zealand Herald, August 17, 1929<\/p>\n
\u201cHere in millions.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there are very few people who realise what enormous numbers of stoats and rats there are in New Zealand,\u201d wrote Mr. Edgar F. Stead, the well-known Christchurch naturalist, in a letter read at the Wellington Acclimatisation Society\u2019s meeting this week regarding the protection of birds at its game farm. <\/p>\n
\u201cI have no doubt whatever that both the black rats and stoats exist here in millions. <\/p>\n
\u201cNeither dogs nor cats, nor both together, will keep these vermin away. <\/p>\n
\u201cI keep two spaniels, and my gardener has one, and yet there are always black rats in the creepers round my house, and stoats within 50yds. of it. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf you want to get some idea of the numbers of rats and stoats in the country, have a look at their footprints in the freshly fallen snow, or in the mud along the banks of streams.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not Protected<\/p>\n
North Otago Times, April 11, 1930<\/p>\n
Weasels and stoats are not on the list of protected animals, but enjoy a measure of protection from the Agricultural Department as enemies of the rabbit pest. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut the rabbits are no longer a pest,\u201d said the secretary of the Wellington Acclimatisation Society to a reporter, \u201cand where the forests are free from rabbits, the Agricultural Department is easing the restriction on killing weasels and stoats.\u201d <\/p>\n
Where there were no rabbits the weasels and stoats, and also bush rats, had to find food, and consequently made havoc among the native birds.<\/p>\n
Of course, many of these vermin were caught by opossum trappers, not because they wanted to catch them, but because they got in the traps and were killed. <\/p>\n
Last year, 33,000 bush rats and over two thousand weasels and stoats were caught in that way. <\/p>\n
The skins rarely fetched a price worthwhile to the trapper, unless they were white stoats, but it was only above the snow line that stoats took on this colour, and consequently, they were rare.<\/p>\n
Stoats Contract Disease<\/p>\n
Central Hawke\u2019s Bay Press, August 25, 1945<\/p>\n
Stoats are subject periodically to an epidemic disease that kills many of them, and a writer in Forest and Bird states that he has recently observed large numbers of them all suffering from some illness which paralysed some in their hind quarters. <\/p>\n
A strange fact was that all the stoats he saw were moving in a southerly direction.<\/p>\n