There are a variety of different tools available to land managers to control rabbits, and some of these are more effective than others. This was the message which twenty four participants from across Victoria and Tasmania learnt at a recent Rabbit Leadership Course in Bacchus Marsh Victoria. 

Sessions were structured with learning the principles of rabbit control then getting out into the paddock to learn first-hand practical techniques. This included ripping rabbit warrens, fumigation, baiting and implosion methods. During the evenings, participants mastered spotlighting techniques, which is a crucial skill for monitoring rabbit numbers, in support of designing and evaluating programs.

National Rabbit Management Facilitator with the Invasive Animals Cooperative Research Centre (IA CRC), Michael Reid, believes that there are big gains to be made in rabbit management by coordinating across properties and thinking about landscape scale outcomes.

“We need to move our thinking beyond success being a pile of dead rabbits. We need to be using different control techniques at the right time and place to reduce rabbit numbers to manageable thresholds, and ensure that their chances of reinfestation are low,” he said.  

Like teenagers who finish school rabbits take gap years away from their burrows but they often don’t return, with up to 72 per cent of bucks breeding away from their natural warren. This means if we are going to control rabbits on one property, we need to control rabbits over the fence otherwise they will continue to reinfest and become a multiplying problem. 

Michael said, “There are some great examples of community groups working together through Landcare or other programs in getting a more co-ordinated approach to rabbit management. There is also new knowledge and research from the IA CRC such as apps, pest management toolkits and research into new strains of a biological control agent for rabbits.” 

One tool is a website called RabbitScan (www.rabbitscan.org.au) which has been developed for the community that allows you to record rabbit sightings, damage and control activities in your local area and to share that information across your community with the aim of helping to plan rabbit control locally. A practical glovebox guide for managing rabbits and a community behaviour change guide for pest animal management, is also part of a toolkit of resources for farmers and land managers available at the IA CRC’s PestSmart Connect website www.pestsmart.org.au.

Further information: Michael Reid, National Rabbit Management Facilitator, michael.reid@invasiveanimals.com, Twitter: @pestrabbit

Image 1: Learning about baiting techniques for rabbits
Image 2: Ripping warrens in steep country as part of an integrated control program

Article from Invasive Animals Cooperative Research Centre

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