Baiting stunts Shire rabbit numbers

THIS February, Maude Landcare Group’s annual rabbit-baiting campaign saw forty people spread three doses of Pindone poison across their respective large properties.

With assistance from a contractor from Barongarook, the Landcare group distributed bags of anticoagulant-spiked carrots over three separate dates from a local shed, which landowners had pre-ordered.

Lex Stray said the baiting program of 20-plus years was successful again, targeted at broad-acre farmers that have big populations of wild rabbits.

“We seem now to have gotten over the suspicion with Pindone of many years. A few farmers didn’t think it worked because they weren’t seeing dead rabbits, but… most of them die in their burrows, and you find very little on the surface,” she said.

“We stopped using 1080 some years ago because it’s dangerous and brutal, and now everybody has come round to Pindone, which is cumulative, such safer, and takes at least two feeds to be enough to kill them.

“It helps to destroy burrows and gorse bushes while everything’s in a weakened state, so it takes a bit of effort to do it properly, but the main thing is that the rabbits have gone.”

Rabbits can damage and foul farmers’ pastures, causing loss of plants and land erosion.

“In lighter soils, where it’s easy-digging, erosion is a factor. Sometimes you see hillsides honeycombed with warrens, get a big dump of rain, and all of a sudden, you lose half your hillside.

“We’re very lucky to have wedge tailed eagles here, and they do feed on rabbits,” Ms Stray said.

A long-term staple in the Maude Landcare Group’s calendar, they’re looking to do it all again at the same time in 2022.

“Not many Landcare groups do this, so we always say to people that if you’re a little further away but prepared to come and get the bait, then you’re most welcome to.

“We’ve had people from all around the tracks involved; Balyang, to Mount Mercer and beyond, and we certainly would never stop anyone from being a part of it,” Ms Stray said.

“We’re just so grateful that people have got enough interest to ‘hop in’ and take part.”

Hares tend not to take to Pindone.