Report
Introduction
The main problem is PESTS, Oliver and I are doing research on New Zealand Rabbits. Why are rabbits a problem? Rabbits are eating the best grass, which life stock will miss out on. Also, the rabbit is digging burrows underground and collapsing the soil making the ground useless and in some instances, livestock like cows get their legs caught in the holes while being shifted.
Food Web
Here in this food web you can see that the rabbit eats the grass, the hawk eats the rabbit and the hawk carries on eating rabbits. Here you can see that hawks are the apex predators which do not get eaten by anything. Even though the hawk is an apex predator there are not many around to keep the numbers down so that's why rabbits are a pest because their numbers are way out of control
Background
Rabbits came to New Zealand around the 1820s - 1840s, they were brought here to provide game for sportsmen to hunt, for food, and to remind the British settlers of home. They probably came into the country from New South Wales in Australia, almost certainly before 1838, although the exact date is not known. In the 1830s, a man named Thomas Austin, a landowner in Winchelsea, Victoria, imported 24 wild rabbits from England and released them into the wild for sport hunting.
Negative Effects
Rabbits can cause damage by: overgrazing native bush, leading to loss of plant and reduced crop yields. Competing with native animals and domestic livestock for food and shelter, increasing grazing pressure and lowering the land's carrying capacity.
What Is Being Done To Help Stop The Spread Of Rabbits
Rabbits can live up to 8-12, so it's very important to kill them before they reproduce more and more. New Zealand has a long history of rabbit control. The main methods used to control rabbits are shooting, poisoning, fumigation of burrows, and rabbit-proof fencing.
What Can Be Done To Better Help Kill All The Rabbits
Chicken wire. Installing a chicken wire fence around your vegetable garden is a great way to eliminate rabbits without killing them, and if everyone can do this, it would work pretty well. Buying a slug gun.
In This Graph, You Can Clearly See That…
Trapping is the most effective way to get rid of rabbit and hunting and 1080 are tied so here you should see that trapping will work the best
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Poison
PROS: Because 1080 targets rabbits, rats, mice and possums, and is effective for controlling stoats, it's well-suited to the predator control we need to do here. New Zealand is unusual because, apart from bats, there are no native mammals.
CONS: 1080 includes arguments over the poison's cruelty and its effects on non-targeted animal species. There are also claims it can taint water supplies, the food chain, and the local environment. The death from 1080 has been described as painful, torturous and slow. Pin done is an anticoagulant rodenticide used to control rabbits
Hunting
PROS: One of the primary benefits of hunting is that it adds variety to a person’s diet. Many animals that are considered livestock are not necessarily a healthy protein to consume on a regular basis. Hunting provides a game for the food chain that can promote healthy eating habits when consumed in moderation.
CONS: Several animal species have been hunted to endangered levels because some part of the creature was deemed to be valuable. Some species have been driven to extinction because of hunting. Mother Nature News reports that there are 13 animals that have been hunted to extinction in the past 200 years alone, from the Tasmanian tiger to the Passenger pigeon to the Quagga.
Trapping
Trapping helps protect game animals while equalizing the predator population. Coyotes and foxes are responsible for some decline of the pheasant population in some areas. You look at the pheasant distribution map and the coyote population distribution, you’ll see that the coyote population is higher in those counties with lower pheasant populations on the map.
bibliography
.www.bionet.nz
.www.doc.govt.nz
.https://predatorfreenz.org
.https://www.mpi.govt.nz/