By 1929, naturalist Edgar Stead warned that stoats existed in "millions" nationwide.
Kem Ormond takes a look at the world of farming back in the day. In this week’s Pastures Past, she’s found a selection of newspaper articles from 1913 to 1945 on stoats.
With its comic expression and glossy black eyes, the stoat may appear endearing at first glance.
Yet beneath its furry exterior lies a predator of remarkable tenacity.
Known for its musky odour — an unforgettable trait once encountered, the stoat is a creature that commands respect more than affection.
In New Zealand, stoats have established themselves across an extraordinary range of habitats, from coastal dunes to alpine scrub, native forests to farmland, and even near human settlements.
Their presence is not dictated by terrain but by the availability of prey.
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.
In 1913, the NZ Herald reported that stoats, along with hawks and weasels, were diminishing game birds and attacking lambs.
It was only ducks that seemed to be outsmarting them, for reasons unknown!
Below is a selection of historical stories from the New Zealand Herald (1913 and 1929), the North Otago Times (1930) and the Central Hawke’s Bay Press (1945).
New Zealand Herald, July 25, 1913
Attacks made on lambs.
[By telegraph.—Special correspondent.]
Wellington, Thursday.
“Our pests are still with us,” said Mr. L. O. H. Tripp, president of the Acclimatisation Association at the opening of the annual conference yesterday.
“Under the depredations of hawks, stoats, and weasels, our game birds are diminishing with the exception of ducks, which are holding their own.
“What I am wondering is, what will be the result when the birds are gone, so far as the stoat is concerned?
“When the stoats have got rid of the birds and the rabbits, are they going to tackle the lambs?
“Sheep farmers have told me that they are quite satisfied that they have lost some of their lambs through the attacks of stoats.
“Lambs have been picked up dead with the typical punctures behind the neck, and shepherds have reported seeing stoats hanging on to the lambs.”
New Zealand Herald, August 17, 1929
“Here in millions.”
“I think there are very few people who realise what enormous numbers of stoats and rats there are in New Zealand,” wrote Mr. Edgar F. Stead, the well-known Christchurch naturalist, in a letter read at the Wellington Acclimatisation Society’s meeting this week regarding the protection of birds at its game farm.
“I have no doubt whatever that both the black rats and stoats exist here in millions.
“Neither dogs nor cats, nor both together, will keep these vermin away.
“I 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.
“If 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.”
North Otago Times, April 11, 1930
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.
“But the rabbits are no longer a pest,” said the secretary of the Wellington Acclimatisation Society to a reporter, “and where the forests are free from rabbits, the Agricultural Department is easing the restriction on killing weasels and stoats.”
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.
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.
Last year, 33,000 bush rats and over two thousand weasels and stoats were caught in that way.
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.
Central Hawke’s Bay Press, August 25, 1945
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.
A strange fact was that all the stoats he saw were moving in a southerly direction.
- Source: Papers Past