A special edition of the Tyne Tees Television rural affair programme Landmark presented by Eric Robson coming from the Central Otago district of the south island of New Zealand where an invasion of rabbits has become an ecological disaster. What can be done to stop the spread? Is myxomatosis a solution? Title: Landmark Eric Robson the presenter outlines the content of the programme. Rabbits will feature in this episode, as a pest in food production. The programme goes to New Zealand to find...

A special edition of the Tyne Tees Television rural affair programme Landmark presented by Eric Robson coming from the Central Otago district of the south island of New Zealand where an invasion of rabbits has become an ecological disaster. What can be done to stop the spread? Is myxomatosis a solution? Title: Landmark Eric Robson the presenter outlines the content of the programme. Rabbits will feature in this episode, as a pest in food production. The programme goes to New Zealand to find out how they are dealing with the rabbit problem. The population of rabbits in New Zealand has caused an ecological disaster. In some regions it has “eaten farmers off the land”. The worst affected area is central Otago in the South Island. The Earnscleugh estate should be perfect for sheep grazing, but rabbits have caused huge amounts of damage. Alistair Campbell a farmer says upwards of 11000 acres of grazing has been lost to rabbits. This has also led to some soil erosion. Low rainfall is beneficial to the rabbit’s habitat, and their reproduction rate is very high. Dr Morgan Williams a government scientist outlines that the habitat for the rabbits in this part of New Zealand is perfect for rabbits. Food is plentiful and this literally feeds their reproductive rate. The rabbit’s origin is in Spain and Portugal, European settlers were first thought to have introduced them to New Zealand in the 1840’s as rabbit was part of the settlers’ diet. Scottish settlers planted large swathes of the landscape with new types of grass for their sheep. This in turn laid the foundation to the current rabbit problem, as there were few predators, and it was disease free. The Earnscleugh area was particularly badly hit, with farmers going out of business. Natural predators were introduced to try and keep numbers down and then settlers started trading in rabbit skins and other products including rabbit meat. Hunting rabbits could earn and still goes on but not at the same scale. Vernie Potts and Jack Ussher, both hunters talk about their experiences and how much money they could make in earlier times. After the second world war the government didn’t invest in rabbit hunting as they did before the war. They opted for the use of poisons to control the rabbit population. Machinery was used to lay trenches with treated oats; rabbits died in their thousands. Light planes also spread the treated food from the air in more inaccessible places. The 1080 poison, as it was known worked and as there were few other mammals that might be harmed because of its use, it was used widely especially in areas with excessive numbers of rabbits. Other poisons used were gas in pellet form which were placed in rabbit warrens and burrows. The gas was emitted when the pellets came into contact with moist soil. Work to eradicate the rabbits went on 24 hours a day. Marksmen roamed the countryside on motorbikes at night, their powerful spotlights mesmerising their targets. Most of these methods to reduce the rabbit population worked in many parts of New Zealand, but in the central Otago region the trend was reversing. Title: Landmark Groups of men armed with rifles walk across the land shooting rabbits. Cairnmuir is an area near Earnscleugh which is farmed by Bruce Paterson. He organises shooting parties but it’s still not the solution to the rabbit problem. He also thinks that various reports have not come up with an answer. He has had to reduce his sheep flock by a thousand, because of the damage rabbits are doing. Over the past ten years the government’s policy has moved from eradication to controlling numbers of rabbits. In the Otago region however, with particularly high numbers of rabbits, it was found they were resisting some of the poisons. Some rabbits were not feeding on the bait, and this ability was being passed on to their young, avoidance of the bait had become an inherited trait. Farmer Alistair Campbell said that the current use of bait was becoming less effective, and he condoned the eradication method used in Australia, which was to introduce myxomatosis. A method also used in Europe and is highly effective but controversial. A clip from an Australian Wool Board public information film makes the case for this method of rabbit control. Bob Gumbrell a member of the New Zealand Vet Association describes the symptoms of myxomatosis and how it affects the rabbit. Alistair Campbell accepts that this is a particularly harsh way to deal with the problem, but it works, other methods don’t reduce rabbit numbers enough. Sean Boswell of the Pest Destruction Board admits that controversial as it is, it’s still the most effective way of reducing rabbit populations. However, the disease affects the animal for eight days. Other forms of eradication still cause distress but over a much shorter period. Bob Gumbrell from the Vet Assocation says suffering is involved in whatever method you use to control pests or parasites. He says that the vet’s role is to ensure that whatever method is used, it has to be humane, causing as little distress to the animal as possible. An amateur video from the South Australia Department of Agriculture shows hundreds of rabbits breaking through a mesh fence in 1988. Myxomatosis resistance is beginning to ensure populations of rabbits are growing again. The film shows a group of red deer an animal also causing ecological problems for New Zealand at one time. Bob Gumbrell says that at one time red deer were a pest and are now an asset, similarly with the goat. He says introducing myxomatosis would affect the use of rabbits as resource in the future. Eric Robson, of camera, states that the government will not introduce myxomatosis for the time being. It follows that there may be a risk that farmers might smuggle the disease into the country, as happened in Britain in the 1950s. Farmer Alistair Campbell says that it would be difficult to release the disease illegally, but the more people who are affected by the burgeoning rabbit population, then the temptation to do so would become greater. A joint task force of farmers and scientists was set up to come up with a policy. A report was produced under the title of The Report of the Rabbit & Land Management Task Force. It suggested more research into bait avoidance, more methods of control, and alternative land use should be encouraged. Compensation should be given to producers, given that myxomatosis will not be used as a control. Alan Kane a farmer and member of the Rabbit Task Force welcomed the fact that farmers were members of the task force so that solutions to the problem have a chance of working. Dr Morgan Williams the government scientist says a totally sustainable solution must involve a number of options to work. Eric Robson brings the programme to a close saying that British farmers shouldn’t be complacent as a plague of rabbits here is imminent. Credits: Camera Murray Page, Jeff Hooper Production Assistant Jane Hyde Technician Mike Laba Research Caroline Chapman-Cohen UK Production Charles Bowden, Coreen Harvey, Simon Lawson, Chris Potter VT Editors Sally Fryer, Jonathan Bravo Producer/Director Crispin Sadler Waterfront Productions for Tyne Tees Television © MCMLXXXIX