Even though we appreciated the scrumptious Easter eggs the Easter Bunny left us as wee kids, who even signed the letters we wrote her with coloured paw pads, we were still Kiwis through and through with a general distaste for the hoppity pests.
So we good ol’ Kiwis sure know how to host the Great Alexandra Easter Bunny Hunt. (DISCLAIMER: Stop reading now if you’re of a sensitive mind.)
Alexandra’s a community in Otago, way down in the South Island. Last weekend was the 15th annual Easter Bunny Hunt, where teams of hunters are spread out over local farms and sheep stations, and have 24 hours to bag as many of the buggers as they can.
This year, 400 hunters shot more than 16,000 bunnies, a bit down on last year’s 22,000.
Just like the British colonial settlers brought gorse to NZ, thinking it a terrifically useful substitute for fencing and now another national pest, rabbits were introduced for hunting sport and to remind the Poms of home. Now, rabbits are among farmers' worst enemies in drought-prone Otago, where grass is scarce.
And I can’t help passing on the faintly quixotic e-mail address for the organizer: bunnyhunt@xtra.co.nz – true spirit!
5 comments:
I would rather be paddling on broad creek at night that helping eradicate a bunny problem.
Wow that is a lot of bunnies. 20 bunnies a day per hunter is a lot of rabbit stew to clean and fix and cook....ugh.
:)
The alternate ending is where 15,000 of the pissed off buggers turn on the hunters and ravage their base camp. Hopefully by stripping them naked and stealing all their beer! I'm always for the under-bunny.
(previous post... seplinlg erors)
Kind of like the guys who introduced carp here, certain it would become a coveted game fish. We had a ploy when pheasant hunting in South Dakota of asking the farmers if we could hunt rabbits and the stray pheasant that got up. 120 bunnies and a weekend for six of us and we cleaned and ate every one. Guess I'd rather be paddling Lake Superior these days however.
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