Last weekend was such fun I thought I'd share it a bit.
John and I went up to the Grampians for the weekend for rabbit and other pest extermination activities. We have access to 3 adjoining farms which comprise 5,000 acres approximately. It's hilly, fairly steep grades but not mountainous. At this time of year the grass is still short, and fairly green, and it's a delight to hike around. The countryside is quite soft and gentle in colour, not in the least like those pictures of Australia you see in outback magazines. In a month or so it will be scorching hot, windy and dry, the flies will be appalling and the prickles will stab you in a hundred places when you lie down, but not now. Mid-to late spring is best.
Vegetation is a mix of pine forest, gum trees, fodder and grassland.
Not-very-well-merged photo of our area of operations below:
We park the car here and go for a hike up the hill. The bracken-y area in the centre of the photo is swarming with rabbits after about 3pm. We have daylight saving now so we shoot from probably 4pm to about 8pm, and then call it quits. We don't spotlight here, it's too risky to walk at night and the vehicle won't get up the slope either (a city 4wd!).
Having said that, I managed to stick my foot in a rabbit hole in broad daylight, in the one patch of long grass in the paddock the very first afternoon. Went right over on the left foot and the ankle swelled up like a balloon. Luckily no permanent damage but did I swear. After about half an hour I was able to roll over and line up a few silly rabbits who hadn't taken advantage of my stupidity and were still about 200 yards away. Shot 3 before they got the message and disappeared.
The rest of the day was a mixture of more cursing and shooting. Surprisingly my accuracy got better with the foot debacle. Pain is a good focus-sharpener, it seems.
We shoot at rabbits from between about 50 metres and 500 metres. My best shots are about 200m and we both manage about 90-95% success rate in that range. Over 300 the rate drops to about 50% and over 400m the accuracy is about 1 in 10. I must add we use fairly powerful rounds - the poor bunny doesn't have much of a chance. But it generally means your projectile is less affected by wind and your rabbit stays dead. I hate wounding animals no matter what they are. Better to be sure. They do tend to explode somewhat though when a .243 or a 6mm/250 hits them. Bringing them back for the table is definitely not an option.
The first day yielded 26 targets for me, and 43 for John. But then, he walked further, and of course, I was crippled. Two good excuses there. Saw one fox but for about 2 seconds and couldn't get a shot. Damn. A fox is worth about 50 rabbits in the satisfaction ledger. Feral cats are worth about 20.
By this stage I was desperate for some medicinal spirit, so we went back to the farmhouse and were treated to a slap up country-style corn beef and vegie dinner with plenty of 12 year old scotch and red wine. Hobbled back to our B&B which is a 3 bedroom art deco house in Ararat.
Next morning I declined to get up for various reasons and John had the day to himself out there. The third day I confined myself to one hillside, which yields less but was easier on the foot. It's amazing how rabbits vary in colour. There are the dark grey ones which look like granite boulders. Sometimes they look so like them you shoot the boulders, which generally explode in a shower of gravel. When you shoot rabbit-shaped boulders, you always hit them dead centre even in a howling gale.
Rabbits are also sand-coloured and some look like lumps of iron ore. The sandy ones stand out brilliantly on a green hillside, but you can't see them in high summer when it's brown. So the wise old bucks stay on the bare sections and the stupid ones get shot.
Australia has tried two viral methods of rabbit reduction - myxomatosis and calici virus. Both were relatively successful in the short term, but the calici which was introduced about ten years ago, only took in some areas and didn't have any effect at all in dry gullies or pockets. So you could find one farm devoid of rabbits and the next still infested. The number of babies is increasing each year now though, so it looks like calici-free rabbits will breed up from now on and become a real nuisance after the spring rains.
My workmates look at me amazed when I tell them what I do. Most reactions are negative: "How can you DO THAT?" When I ask them what their solution to the rabbit problem is, surprisingly, they don't have one. I also point out that two of our farm owners have Masters of Environmental science and they still want us to shoot their rabbits and cats. I ask them if they've seen a rabbit-devastated hillside, where the topsoil has blown away, the hill has collapsed in upon itself and all the native vegetation and native animals which use it have been either destroyed or forced to re-locate. They shuffle their feet and say, well, shooting them just isn't right. I think the fact that I don't shed tears of blood when a rabbit drops is offensive to them. I actually enjoy shooting? Unbelievable!
Oh dear. Latte Greens, we call them these days. These are folks who've never lived in the country, and never had to deal with real problems of environmental control, but they've owned pet rabbits and can't overcome their own sensitivities. Farmers don't have that luxury. They have to survive in the real world, and it's tough enough for them in our environment without the self-indulgent ravings of people like PETA. I can't for the life of me understand these people. PETA devotees go around Singapore feeding the feral cats, for gods sake, and are proud of it.
Anyway we're back at it in a fortnight while the going is good. Hope to have more stories.
Nice one. Thanks
Posted by: Stan | Friday, 05 November 2004 at 19:49