mystery solved
p. 74 · Read in the full issue
A real cow of a mystery solved
The mystery of why cows at one time roamed the tiny Ellice atoll of Niulakita is solved. They were put on Niulakita by Burns Philp to provide meat for copra cutters.
Mr. Ray Harberd, the GEIC’s senior agricultural officer, had wondered how the cows came to be there —in what was other wise a cattleless colony—and why they vanished (PIM, Feb., p. 116). Mr. Robby Roberts, a senior colony government man, has this answer: “It’s understood Burns Philp placed some cattle there to provide meat for copra cutters,” (BP’s bought the atoll in 1926 in 1944 it become Crown land).
“Niulakita has no grass and its weeds, etc., provided so little sustenance that the beasts died off—in recent years Ellice people have cut copra there and the last cow was killed by men from a passing naval vessel about 1953.
“The inhabitants requested that the cow be killed because (a) the cow ate their banana plants, (b) it was dangerous to children, (c) without a husband it could do nothing but get old and tough and (d) the people wanted some fresh meat.”