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Thu, 12/04/2007 - 11:50pm
Wellington - It was a grim Easter for rabbits in New Zealand's Otago province, where nearly 400 hunters shot 16 121 bunnies in an annual hunt organised to put a smile on farmers' faces, news reports said on Monday.
Rabbits thrive on the wide open spaces of South Island ranches, where the fuzzy mammals are detested by farmers for chewing up grass that could be forage for sheep and cattle.
Hunters from all over New Zealand met on Good Friday at Alexandra, where they were assigned to farms and sheep stations within a 100-kilometre radius from the town and given 24 hours to shoot as many rabbits as they could.
Organiser Martin McPherson told the Southland Times that the total cull was down from last year, when about 22 000 were shot.
Brought to New Zealand by British colonial settlers to provide hunting sport and remind them of home, rabbits are among farmers' worst enemies in drought-prone Otago, where grass is scarce. - Sapa-DPA
Does this put the elephant culling issue into a new perspective ?
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Certainly Sheeps and cattle too.
But leave this Sheep and Cattle issue out of the Discussion, as culling the Rabbits to "protect the Green" is just a side effect.
What do Rabbits on New Zealand, what could endanger or disturb the local wildlife?
I hope you dont want to safe the Genetic Pool of the evelutenary advanced "christchurch Rammer"
To try to compare this to the Elephant Culling is Odd in this context.
Greets from (Let me check out the window, where I am) Camden,New Jersey
David
Rabbits occupy 56% of land areas in New Zealand and there is a lot of information about how this affects the environment on
http://www.maf.govt.nz/mafnet/rural-nz/research-and-development/pest-control/rcd-recommendation/rcdrec04.htm
The fact that cattle and sheep are 'alien' species is irrelevant - they sustain the human populations in New Zealand whereas rabbits do not! We all have to live, and eat?
The comparison to elephant culling is far from 'odd', as you put it. Elephants in parts of Africa (in this case, Kruger) are decimating the environment, as are the rabbits in New Zealand, to the detriment of the environment as a whole.
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