Pests

Report 

Paragraph 1: Rabbits - soft and fluffy balls of happiness - that's what most people think of all types of Rabbits. But there is one type which is one of the most ferocious pests in NZ, the wild Rabbit. Many people will think that they are just like normal rabbit’s. 

Paragraph 2: Rabbit’s are incredible even though they are pests. Nearly their whole body has a cool and useful part to keep them sustained. From head to toe there are endless things to talk about. The eyes, they are incredible. Their eyes can rotate 360 degrees and they can see behind them. You may think that all quick animals are big but actually according to several articles and websites the European Rabbit is one of the quickest land animals in the world. And that's just some of the animal's body.

Paragraph 3: The most common wild rabbit in NZ is the European rabbit which first arrived in 1769. They were introduced when the famous explorer James Cook, they were introduced to give sportsmen the opportunity to hunt them and collect fur and food also to remind the British of home. But unfortunately they could not contain the population so the European rabbit was free running through NZ. They were first located in North-Western Africa, Spain and Portugal.

Paragraph 4.

Numeracy data.

This graph shows us the number of pests that died in each month for each year.

This graph would help us on finding the best strategies for killing the pests.

 One of the weird things in this graph is that it sky rocketed in march to may in 2020

Because thats when they remade traps  

Paragraph 5: What impacts do the pest species have on its food web?

The wild rabbit is the primary consumer of its food web, by eating the producer's grass then being eaten by the wild cat and the hawk.

Wild Rabbits are one of the worst pests in the agricultural sector because of eating all of the shrub and grass making it impossible to have enough food food live-stock.

According to the Department of Conservation and the Ministry of Primary Industry’s 10 wild rabbits can eat the same amount of food as one tribe. That is why the Wild Rabbit is such a bad thing for the environment.

What effects do rabbits have?

Paragraph 6: One of the effects that rabbits do are burrows, a burrow is a hole that rabbits dig so they can have a nice warm underground home. The bad thing about burrows is that they are usually in the middle of farmland.They also can cause erosion when the land slowly starts to get marks from the wind, rain and storms over time. Erosion is bad because it causes loss of topsoil Which is a really important part of the soil, without topsoil things like crops and reduced crops make them harder to grow. 

Paragraph 7: Another bad thing that rabbits do is eat grass. This is bad because when they eat grass they destroy the dirt wich makes brown spots and makes the dirt unhealthy making them unable  to grow crops or plants like flowers or food.

How to prevent rabbits from ruining your grass.

Paragraph 8: Fumigation is a common way to kill pests, especially Wild Rabbits. Fumigation is the most effective way, but it is very important to be handled by a professional and for them to be wearing high-tech uniforms. When the fumes are puffed into the burrow it will be the end for the rabbits one breath in of the fumes and the rabbits go. 

Paragraph 9: Poison is one of the most common ways to kill pests.

Poison is good because it's cheaper and easier to use, it's easier because if you use traps that means that you need someone checking them every day.

There are two main types of poison used on rabbits; they are called chronic poisons and acute poisons. Chronic poisons have an accumulated effect which means It slowly gets better but takes time. The other type of poison is acute poison which is basically the opposite of chronic poison. They are fast-killing poisons and easy to use but don't last as long. There are also other ways like fumigation.

Paragraph 10: Hunting is another effective way of getting rid of rabbits but is one of the most expensive options because you have to pay for guns, hunters and bullets which would equal a lot of money. But hunting doesn't kill as many pests as the other options.

Paragraph 11:This is a PMI Plus-Minus-Interesting point. This shows the three solutions to decrease the Wild Rabbit population. The three reasons are Fumigation, Poison and Hunting. As you can see there are a number of positive and negative effects on each solution, Then each solution was graded on 5 categories: Cost, Animals killed, Efficient, People involved and Effect on the environment. Every solution was rated 1-5 in each category and the lower the score the better, For example, we rated poison a 2 for cost. So Poison and Fumigation were the best solutions with them being scored 11 and Hunting being scored 20. 

Conclusion 

So as you can see fumigation and poison are the most effective way to kill the rabbits but poison is the best ability to kill the rabbits. 

I hope this has shown you just how bad Wild Rabbits are not just fluffy balls of happiness.