The Eyre Peninsula Landscape Board is urging landholders on the eastern EP to start baiting feral rabbits now.
Baiting can cut feral rabbit numbers by 98 per cent, and the Board’s Cleve-based Eastern Operations Team Leader Liam Anderson suggests adapting an effective baiting program, like ‘free’ feeds.
This method would see landholders ‘train’ the rabbits to eat oats by supplying three feeds of clean oats before laying out bait.
“The free feed method has multiple purposes… to train up the rabbits to become comfortable with eating the oats, but also to identify exactly where and how bad your populations are,” Anderson says.
The Board says this is the perfect time, with dry conditions impacting the grazing habits of the pest animals.
“Over the last few years, I would’ve said this was a bit too late, but given that we haven’t had much rain, the lack of green feed on the ground makes the uptake of oats a bit more palatable for the rabbits.”
If 1080 baiting is not your preferred choice of pest control, more control techniques can be found on the Feral Scan website, where you can also report rabbit sightings.
See here for more information.
