I’ve been thinking about rabbits a lot lately.
#EatNZKaitaki Joe Flaherty is a food writer based in Ōtepoti/Dunedin. To celebrate the Year of the Rabbit, he's taken a deep dive into the role of rabbits & the intersection between pet, pest & food.
The rabbit in Aotearoa exists at an intersection between pet, pest, and food; it could be the only animal to inhabit all three of these niches. It can be a cute fluffy thing kept in a hutch and treasured. It can be an ecological disaster, wreaking havoc on crops and transforming landscapes. It can be dinner, slow-braised or put in a pie. To understand the bizarre relationship that humans have with rabbits, we need to consider their history in Aotearoa, and the lessons we have learned from their less than careful introduction to our country.
First, a distinction between the pest and the pet. Flighty and fearful, wild rabbits are prone to run at the slightest noise. But this instinct is just one of many that make them skilled survivalists, capable of breeding at astounding rates and populating whole regions in a matter of years. In contrast domestic rabbits, having evolved due to close contact with humans, are docile, trusting, and die quickly if released into the Aotearoa’s countryside. The biggest difference, of course, is that we kill and eat wild rabbits and we keep domestic rabbits as close companions. Herein lies part of the answer to the enigma of the rabbit. The wild rabbit is seen as unlovable, as it bounds away from humans and fights back if touched. The domestic rabbit, however, has had its natural instincts stripped away, leaving a cuddly ball of fur perfectly suited as a pet. This dissonance between two breeds of the same species may hold the answer to why we’re fine with eating one and not the other. But it goes deeper than that. You see, there’s a rabbit problem in Aotearoa. A rabbit problem so big it goes by another name: ‘the evil’.
Every Easter in Central Otago there is a curious event. People gather in teams and are allocated a block of land to hunt in, and it’s not chocolate they’re after. This is the Central Otago Great Easter Bunny Hunt, an annual event aiming to help with the eradication of rabbits in Central Otago. It is a 24 hour period of non-stop hunting, and so many people try to enter that the competing teams are decided by lottery.
But let’s dial back to the 18th century, and find out how we got to this point.
Rabbits were introduced by British colonists in the mid 1800s to provide game to hunt and to give Aotearoa a more familiar feel to the colonists. The Otago Acclimatisation Society, established in 1864, was responsible for the introduction of familiar English species such as sparrows, starlings, and, of course, rabbits, to make Aotearoa feel more like home. The aim of acclimatisation societies was to introduce non-invasive species in the hopes that they would acclimatise to their new habitat and become part of the scenery, so to speak. As it turns out, rabbits are well suited to the short grasses and arid conditions of Central Otago. Perfectly suited, in fact.
For a few decades things seemed to be going well. There was a thriving rabbit fur trade, and by 1894 more than 17 million skins had been exported. Rabbits were popular game for hunters, and for a limited time there was a market for canned rabbit meat. However, the growing rabbit population was not showing any signs of slowing down. Rabbits decimated hillsides, causing massive erosion of land by stripping hillsides of vegetation. They also caused major problems for sheep farmers by outcompeting the sheep in their own pastures, leading to entire sheep flocks starving to death. Poisoning, trapping, or shooting rabbits helped a little, but their population growth was too fast to peel the numbers back to a manageable level.
The wild growth of the rabbit population was due to a lack of natural predators in Aotearoa. With human labour there comes costs and limitations. Rabbiters, as they were called, could only be so many places at once, and the rabbits always seemed to be one step ahead. The situation seemed hopeless.
There was, however, one solution that kept coming up. Rabbits do in fact have a natural predator. Just not a native one.
In the late 1870s, the first shipment of ferrets arrived in Aotearoa.
The Central Otago Great Easter Bunny Hunt was born out of a desire to see rabbits eradicated, and it kills a decent number of them - as many as 25,000 in a single day. But there isn’t yet light at the end of the tunnel. The rabbits’ tendency toward jumpiness makes them dastardly to kill: shoot enough of them and the survivors will scatter and become wary of any signs of movement, making poisoning harder to accomplish. Poisoning itself is difficult enough, as it requires an entire community to be diligent and make sure rabbits are eradicated from their patch of land - leave any survivors and you’re back to square one. People have even tried biological warfare: in 1997, a group of farmers illegally smuggled in rabbit haemoarrghic disease in a desperate attempt to stop the spread of rabbits. This worked for a while, and was later approved for use by the government, but in recent years rabbit have started developing immunity to it. Nothing seems to stick.
But in the 30 or so years since its inception The Great Central Otago Easter Bunny Hunt has morphed past the black-and-white idea of completely eradicating rabbits. It is now a dedicated community, with the same teams entering year after year, sharing jokes and stories. It’s composed almost entirely of people who have had their livelihoods disrupted or destroyed by rabbits, and it’s a way for them to fight against ‘the evil’, take back a bit of dignity in the face of overwhelming odds. It’s a gory and crude form of defiance against a cute little animal, but this animal is destroying peoples’ livelihoods.
But back to the ferrets, the introduction of which was not without controversy. Arguing that the results may be devastating for both native and introduced avian life, opponents tried to ban the importation of ferrets and similar species, however their proposed bill was overturned by a Legislative Council, many of whom were businessmen who needed the rabbits controlled. Thus, large shipments of ferrets were imported to Aotearoa and bred. But the ferrets were not the solution they were promised to be. Ferrets excel at killing rabbits, sure, but ultimately couldn’t keep up with rabbit population growth. In the meantime ferrets were discovering another source of food: Aotearoa’s native wildlife. Flying birds had no means of defence against a predator that could climb trees and eat their eggs or target the mothers directly, and ground birds were even more helpless. The ferrets could not win against the rabbits, but it didn’t matter. They had found another source of food, one that didn’t know how to fight back.
The introduction of rabbits into Aotearoa is one of the biggest blunders in the country’s history. The introduction of ferrets is an equally terrible mistake. Take both together and you get a handbook on how not to introduce species. Ferrets with their shifty eyes and bad attitudes are probably more hated by the general public than rabbits. But the farmers who have had their hills uprooted, watching them crumble before their eyes, know that rabbits are much more than the eye can see. They are excellent survivors, incredible breeders, voracious eaters. They are a plague, one that does not yet have a cure.
They’re also quite delicious.
Rabbits have been bred for meat for centuries and historically played a vital role in many diets, as their fast breeding rate allowed a consistent source of protein. Though their popularity as a food source has dropped off in the last hundred years, they are still bred for meat and eaten regularly in some parts of the world. Aotearoa also likes a bit of rabbit now and then, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a bunny farm. People tend to get their rabbit meat through hunting, but it is not as popular as it could be. A push for more rabbit meat to be consumed in Aotearoa could help slow the rabbit plague; there are already efforts to do this, with small businesses being set up to trap and sell rabbits to restaurants and curious customers. If it became a nationwide effort it could be one of the keys to controlling the rabbit plague. That is, if people can get used to seeing their pets as food.
I’m a city boy. I go up to Central Otago once every couple years, go on walks, see some rabbits in the countryside. To me, rabbits are kept in hutches in friends’ backyards or occasionally seen on the menu at a restaurant. They’re spotted running into burrows in Central, adding a nice touch to the scenery. They’re cute. They taste pretty nice. I shot at one once, but I missed. But if I step back I see how fractured my views on the rabbit are. The rabbit problem in Aotearoa is so overwhelming that - unless you have one as a pet, which I don’t - it is necessary to see them as an enemy or a food source.
But we can’t blame the rabbits.
Rabbits are naturally good survivors. They are perfectly suited to the landscape of Aotearoa. And humans brought them here. As food, as game, for the fur trade, it doesn’t really matter. This one is on the humans, whether we like it or not. And it’s on the humans to solve it. Ferrets didn’t work. The introduced disease lost its effectiveness within a few years. The only solution that has shown results is concentrated human effort. This endeavour is not fruitless. The efforts being made at a governmental and local level are commendable, with whole communities banding together to stop the spread of ‘the evil’. Rabbits have taught us a lot about pest control, and this knowledge is being applied to possums, rats, and other invasive species in Aotearoa. Hindsight is forever 20/20, and our pest control measures are tighter than ever before.
But we can’t blame the rabbits.
Rabbits in pop culture have enjoyed a reputation as mischievous, cunning, loveable characters. They like carrots and stealing from evil farmers. It’s a mixture of their inherent cuteness and quick reflexes that give them this image: they’re adorable and easily scared and good at evading danger. It makes them loveable. Rabbits are found on every continent except Antarctica. This makes them easy to recognise, easy to identify with. In pop culture, they are almost always the hero.
But we can’t blame the rabbits for this.
2023 is the Chinese New Year of the Rabbit. People born in a Year of the Rabbit are believed to be vigilant, witty, quick-minded, and ingenious. It’s not hard to see why. Rabbits are tricky customers and born survivors, to the point where their astonishing reproductive rate has seen them depicted as monsters and nicknamed ‘the evil’. The rabbit does not know this. The rabbit in the wild is just looking for food, or making a home, or having a family. It is not aware of the damage it causes. The rabbit has managed to take over the world through no fault of its own.
I ask you to consider the rabbit. Consider it in all its forms: as pet, as pest, as food. Consider the unique traits that have allowed it to maintain these three facets of existence. Consider the evil it has caused, and its lack of awareness of its crimes. Consider its role in popular culture, its role in Easter. Consider how such a simple creature can be so complex and inhabit so many roles. Consider the struggles to rid our land of this pest, and the missteps along the way. And next time you see one in the wild try to understand it as the complicated creature it is.
Or just shoot it. Shooting it is probably better.
Words by Joe Flaherty @jozephcooks. Images sourced from Stuff.co.nz.