Karamū Rabbit Reset: Bang Bang Peter

Feral rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) were introduced to New Zealand in the 1800s. In the absence of natural predators and with highly adaptable biology, they have thrived.

Their population growth is what makes them so difficult to manage. Females can be pregnant for much of the year, adjusting litter size depending on food availability. Young rabbits reach reproductive age quickly, meaning populations can rebound rapidly after control efforts or even after environmental setbacks.

This is a problem.

Rabbits have become one of the most persistent pressures on the lowland landscapes of the Karamū catchment. What once might have been a manageable presence has, over time, turned into a widespread issue, stripping seedlings, weakening pasture, girdling young orchard trees and damaging young native plantings.

Across farms, orchards, and lifestyle blocks, the pattern is the same: individual control helps, but it doesn’t hold for long.

At a catchment level, rabbits:

• suppress native regeneration

• damage new orchard and shelterbelt plantings

• destabilise soils already under pressure

• increase erosion risk in vulnerable areas

Left unmanaged at scale, the cumulative effect is a slow but steady loss of resilience across the landscape.

Bang Bang Peter is about rethinking the way rabbit control happens here.

Instead of isolated effort, the goal is simple: a coordinated, catchment-wide response where people are working together, not alone.

The aim is to reduce rabbit numbers meaningfully across the landscape with a shared target of 5,000 rabbits removed, while building something that lasts beyond a single season of control.

Bringing People Together

The first step is connection. A community event brings landowners, farmers, and local stakeholders into the same room alongside ecological experts and representatives from Hawke’s Bay Regional Council.

Our focus is to understand the scale of the issue, compare approaches, and align on what coordinated control actually looks like in practice. From there, control efforts move into action across the catchment. The emphasis is on practical, accessible methods that people can apply consistently across different land types and holdings.

This is about turning awareness into sustained, collective effort.

Success looks like:

• native vegetation getting away without being grazed out

• new plantings surviving their first critical years

• and a community working from the same playbook instead of fighting the same problem separately

It also looks like something less tangible but just as important: confidence that coordinated action actually works.

This is a community-led initiative funded by Ministry for Primary Industries alongside local landowners, farmers, and catchment stakeholders contributing both funding and on-the-ground effort.