Community collaboration is the winner, after four years battling an out-of-control rabbit population in Moeraki. 

A successful community rabbit management programme in the coastal North Otago town is being celebrated - but co-operative vigilance remains the key to long-term success, the Otago Regional Council says.

Council Environmental Implementation manager Libby Caldwell says the most recent results for residents in the Moeraki Community Rabbit Management Programme has been “outstanding”, citing well over 90% of properties in the area now complying.

The coastal township and surrounding farms of Moeraki, south of Ōamaru, have historically had significant rabbit populations, at times causing widespread damage around the area.

Recently, many in the community got together and utilised a combination of rabbit-netted fencing, engaged contractors for poison operations, and then followed up with thermal night shooting to knock back the rabbit population.

“The Moeraki programme is a fantastic example of the success community initiatives can have, but rabbit control work is never truly finished, and we all have to remain vigilant to maintain these gains,” Libby says.

While rabbit control is always ultimately the responsibility of land occupiers, be it private or public land, the efforts of Moeraki’s landowners have “really paid dividends”, she says.

Moeraki residents Dugald and Alison MacTavish, who are landowners in the community programme, say the rabbits on their property were getting to the point of “eating everything” available, leaving bald patches across paddocks, affecting spring flush for several years and even ring-barking mature gorse bushes.

“We’ve always had a background rabbit level, but it got worse over those four to five years, where eventually everyone had different horror stories to tell. We would shoot but it was a no-win situation as there was always a [rabbit] nest of reinfection somewhere nearby,” Dugald says.

Photo: Matteo Baronti from Pixabay

While some people did not like the idea of poisoning, because of concerns over pets and wildlife, once initial numbers go down by poisoning, then communities can keep them down with two to three contractor shootings each year, with a professional using thermal imaging equipment.

“So we planned a single poisoning to do just that and then switched to shooting only,” Dugald says. 

Mrs Caldwell says the Moeraki community tackled the problem cohesively, given rabbits are an area-wide problem, not just an individual property problem.

“While there’s still work to be done in the area to maintain the great gains residents have made, that workload should be more manageable and predictable going forward due to their excellent and collaborative work,” she says.

Mrs Caldwell says during the last four years, ORC inspected and visited 97 public and privately owned properties, including several properties owned by the Waitaki District Council and the Department of Conservation. 

‘’Staff have supported the community and have really enjoyed this project and seeing the great work the community has done.”

As of last September, 94 properties (or 97%) inspected as part of the community management programme were compliant with the relevant rule of the Otago Regional Pest Management Plan 2019-2029.

With groups of landowners in the community combining their efforts and engaging the same contractor, they were able to cost share and achieve greater gains through a coordinated approach by doing all the work required at the same time, Libby says.

Dugald says the area’s large farms generally had their own control systems in place, so the group’s primary focus was the peri-urban and rural lifestyle blocks.

“Within the wider area, we just asked all landowners if they would coordinate their control in the winter,” he says. 

Under the current RPMP rules, they believe the best way to avoid rabbit populations re-establishing, is if the group or groups agree to employ one professional contractor who is charged with maintaining numbers below the formal measure of the Modified McLean Scale.

To minimise reinfestation, he thinks it would be “highly desirable” to establish a “catchment” map with natural rabbit boundaries, within which all property owners would coordinate the timing and intensity of control effort.

“It’s important to be informed and be prepared to be flexible because there’s all kinds of individual concerns to be considered around shooting or using poison,” he says.

Background

In September 2021, the regional council initiated the Moeraki Community Rabbit Management Programme to identify which areas of Moeraki were particularly rabbit-prone and why, to provide education about roles and responsibilities related to rabbit management, and guidance on effective rabbit management approach.

The Otago Regional Pest Management Plan 2019-2029 plan rule 6.4.6.1 states an occupier within the Otago region shall control feral rabbit densities on the land they occupy to at or below Level 3 on the Modified McLean Scale.