Thread: Rabbit City

Originally Posted by Rushy

Thanks for that Tahr. I had heard of the damage that the rabbits do but seeing that photograph provides a great deal of perspective. We in the north have no idea really.

dunno about that - at Kaitaia had a burial reserve out in the sand dunes at Ahipara about 8 acres of grass and dunes - looked like that - could not get on top of the little buggers and locals would not allow bait - first two nights spotlighting shot 60 first night and 35 second night and could take 20-30 a visit easy - shot it about every 3-4 weeks

Originally Posted by Tahr

1080 does a real job on the wallaby. Reduces them to pretty much zero. Trouble is they don't do big enough adjoining areas at the same time so they soon re-populate. And they only seem to do the the outer edges to stop their spread so killing a few thousand with 1080 just makes room for another few thousand to move in.

Same with shooting. If neighbours aren't cooperating those who are shooting are just making room for a new influx.

Comes down to dollars. Neighbours are happy to co-operate (generally) but effective poisoning needs to be to large scale and to geographic boundaries, or population boundaries. Rabbits or Wallaby's dont live inside fences so there-in lies the problem. Thats the very problem with a user-pays system that now operates. Some cockeys will willingly pay their share, others begrudgingly pay, some aren't interested.
Can't see it changing any time soon

Originally Posted by Barry the hunter

dunno about that - at Kaitaia had a burial reserve out in the sand dunes at Ahipara about 8 acres of grass and dunes - looked like that - could not get on top of the little buggers and locals would not allow bait - first two nights spotlighting shot 60 first night and 35 second night and could take 20-30 a visit easy - shot it about every 3-4 weeks

to put that into perspective Barry... a few years ago..ok 26-27 years ago I used to help out on rabbit harvesting for dog tucker..we would headshoot,gut and bring home between 3-400 each n every night..the fellas doing pure search n destroy were up into 4 figures and 1600 is one of the highest figures I remember being shot. back when I gave it a go professionally in Tarras a walk around would easily net 30-50 for a few hours in middle of the day.

Contractors poison the forest behind my place a couple of weeks.Took this photo couple of days ago at 2pm.6 rabbits out in the sun feeding above green dots 40yds from my house.Cheeky bastards.

Amazing amount of rabbits in this area. Back of Tutira Hawkes Bay. A couple of years ago.