Central Otago Great Easter Bunny Hunt

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Central Otago Great Easter Bunny Hunt
StatusActive
GenreCull
Date(s)Easter
FrequencyAnnual
Location(s) Alexandra, New Zealand
Inaugurated1990s
FounderDave Ramsay
Participants31 teams (average)
Activity Nuisance wildlife management
Organised byAlexandra Lions Club

The Central Otago Great Easter Bunny Hunt is an annual rabbit cull held every Easter in and around Alexandra, New Zealand, since the early 1990s. It is organised by Alexandra Lions Club and convened by Dave Ramsay. [1] [2] Central Otago is an area of New Zealand where rabbits are a non-native, invasive, serious problem with no natural predators, and land owners have a legal obligation to control them. [3] In 2016, "the Otago Regional Council budget[ed] 2200 hours a year for biosecurity officers to police this, and in 2013, one landowner was taken to court over excessive rabbits." [4]

Contents

Environmental necessity

"It took only a handful of years for Central Otago’s rabbits to transform from sport into problem. The Acclimatisation Society of Otago released 60 bunnies in 1866, but five years later, its chairman wrote to the Otago Witness pleading for its readers to stop setting rabbits free in the high country: they were eating the land bare." [4] In 1876 New Zealand's Rabbit Nuisance Act was passed.

"Central Otago’s rabbits have long been known simply as ‘the evil’. They've held the title of the region's worst pest since the middle of the 19th century, maintaining it in the face of helicopter hunters, poison-laced carrots, aerial 1080 drops, rabbit-proof fences and biological warfare, in the form of a virus smuggled into the country by farmers in 1997." [4] Additional misguided attempts at controlling the rabbits included releasing ferrets in 1879 even after warnings were made of their effects on bird life. The ferrets devastated the native bird populations and are now hunted pests. In 1885 stoats and weasels were released in another misguided effort, and are also now hunted pests. Reporter Rebekah White described the rabbit damage on "the naked, pockmarked hillside I’m standing on. It looks as though it has been strafed repeatedly, and it’s bereft of plants—just scree and dirt that the breeze occasionally picks up and shifts. A little more time under the rule of rabbits and it’ll be more dune than hill." [4]

Event format

Teams generally hunt individually on foot during the day, and from vehicles in groups at night when the rabbits are more plentiful. [4]

Results

YearNumber of TeamsTallyWinnerWinner's Tally
2010 [6] 3923,064SWAT2,306
2011 [7] 4722,904Beige Brigade Wolfpack1,664
2012 [8] 3610,424Southern Hopper Stoppers1,035
2013 [9] 36 [note 1] 18,027Hair Raisin' Mutineers1,366
2014 [10] 257,478Wabbit Warriors769
2015 [11] 248,439Down South876
2016 [12] 2710,010Down South889
2017 [2] 218,000+
2018 [13] Cancelled: K5 rabbit virus release
2019Cancelled: extreme fire risk
2020Cancelled: COVID-19
2021 [14] 2511,968Overkill1,185 [note 2]
2022
2023 [15] Cancelled: safety concerns

See also

Notes

1. ^ First shooting incident in the event's 23-year history. A 26-year-old Southland man accidentally shot himself while hunting alone on a Queensberry property and was flown to Dunedin Hospital. It was thought he lost his footing while shooting and fell, receiving injuries to his left hand and forehead. The man had surgery overnight and was recovering the next day.
2. ^ Because the hunt was cancelled in 2018, 2019, & 2020 the hunt was expanded from 24 hours to two nights in 2021, running from 8am on Good Friday until noon on Easter Sunday (52 hours).

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References

  1. ↑ Chamberlain, Rhys (14 April 2017). "Central Otago Great Easter Bunny Hunt is massacre, activists say". Stuff.
  2. 1 2 Kuprienko, Dasha (18 April 2017). "Alexandra hunter takes second place for the tenth time at Easter Bunny Hunt". Stuff.
  3. ↑ "Rabbits". Otago Regional Council. 23 February 2021.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Bunny Hunt". New Zealand Geographic. May–June 2016.
  5. ↑ "More Central Otago farms leave Easter Bunny Hunt competition this year". Stuff.
  6. ↑ Manins, Rosie (19 April 2010). "Record broken in Easter bunny hunt". Otago Daily Times.
  7. ↑ "Hunters cull Easter bunnies". New Zealand Herald. Otago Daily Times.
  8. ↑ van Kempen, Lynda (27 April 2012). "Bunny hunt a win for the rabbits". Otago Daily Times.
  9. ↑ Marquet, Sarah (1 April 2013). "Hunt leaves 18,695 dead, one injured". Otago Daily Times.
  10. ↑ van Kempen, Lynda (21 April 2014). "Lower count at Bunny Hunt". Otago Daily Times.
  11. ↑ van Kempen, Lynda (6 April 2015). "2015 Great Easter Bunny Hunt". Otago Daily Times.
  12. ↑ McKenzie-McLean, Jo (27 March 2016). "Southlanders dominate in Central Otago's Great Easter Bunny Hunt". Stuff.
  13. ↑ Jones, Pam (4 April 2019). "Central Otago Great Easter Bunny Hunt cancelled due to fire risk". New Zealand Herald. Otago Daily Times.
  14. ↑ Hunt, Elle (4 April 2021). "New Zealand town where Easter is all about wiping out bunnies". The Guardian.
  15. ↑ McClure, Tess (7 April 2023). "Unable to shoot rabbits this Easter, New Zealand mulls deadly virus to fight 'plague'". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 8 September 2023.
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