30 APRIL 1932, Page 14

STOATS AND AFFORESTATION.

I heard last week an angry protest against the Government afforesters from the mouth of a landowner and game preserver. His grounds had been overrun with stoats. Now stoats, though common enough, are thinly spaced as a rule, like peregrine falcons or other active creatures of prey ; but this year for the first time, it is alleged, in the history of the estate, stoats have appeared (and disappeared) in scores, to the great jeopardy of ground-nesting game-birds. The reason is alleged to be this. The first task of any and every afforester is to kill off the rabbits which are the worst enemies of trees; mice, perhaps, coming second. Thousands of acres in the Thetford area have been afforested and tens of thousands of rabbits destroyed. The stoats, which prey on rabbits in preference to any other victim, have left these newly barren fir lands, now entirely free from rabbits, and have invaded neighbours' lands where food is more plentiful.