Unexploited Wealth

In the Cold Auckland Is.

WITH steak at luxury prices it is intriguing to hear that cattle of all ages, as well as millions of rabbits, are running wild on Enderby and Rose Islands, in the Auckland Islands group, which lie about 300 miles south of New Zealand.

When the New Zealand coaster Holmlea was chartered in March to pick up a sick meteorologist from Australia’s Macquarie Island, further south, two officials of the NZ De partment of Scientific and Indus trial Research took the oppor tunity to drop off at the Aucklands for a few days, while the ship went on south.

They say that herds of wild cattle which were roaming Enderby are the descendants of cattle landed there for the use of shipwrecked mariners back in sailing-ship days.

The cattle are extremely timid; but, in contrast, swarms of silvery black rabbits are as tame as domestic cats. They have excellent coats of fur. Specimens were brought back for study in relation to disease.

The Aucklands, like all these southern islands, are a storm-swept group, with little bright sunshine and few attractions —except for the possible money in beef and in rabbit skins, completely unexploited—and the gold of the General Grant, wrecked there in 1886.

Enderby Island, 27 miles by 15, has some good harbours, and the principal one, Port Ross, has been described as one of the best ports of refuge in the world.