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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. 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. In 2016, "the Otago Regional Council budget 2200 hours a year for biosecurity officers to police this, and in 2013, one landowner was taken to court over excessive rabbits."

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." 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." 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."

Event format

• Teams are permitted 12 shooters and additional support crew.
• The previous year's top teams get automatic re-entry (usually 4-5 spots depending on the year). The remaining teams are selected by lottery.
• The number of slots is determined by the number of land blocks available, which is determined by the number of farmers offering land for the event. There have always been more teams applying than slots. Farmers decline to participate in subsequent years for various reasons—including because they have managed to get their rabbit populations under control, because prior teams have abused their property, or because of a change of ownership.
• Land blocks are assigned by lottery, in order of furthest to nearest. The level of rabbit infestation of a block is a huge factor in the success of its team.
• Other acceptable pest targets include hares, stoats, possums, turkeys, wild goats, wild pigs.

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

Results

See also

• Invasive species in New Zealand
• Timeline of the New Zealand environment
• 1080 usage in New Zealand
• Rabbit hemorrhagic disease

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).

References

1. Chamberlain, Rhys (14 April 2017). "Central Otago Great Easter Bunny Hunt is massacre, activists say". Stuff.
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. ^ "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.

• 2010 establishments in New Zealand
• Otago
• Hunting in New Zealand