Thread: Virus

This appeared in one of the local papers down here, the article is semi long with some interesting points being made.
I won't type it out as I am too lazy but took a photo of this summary of the new K5 virus and it's effect to date.
To be honest and they elude to it in the article these figures are perhaps not very accurate but it is a snap shot at the time.
I have kept the clipping so if anyone has any questions I will try to answer things as mentioned in the piece.
Hope the photo is clear enough to read for everyone.

That's a huge spread of the stat's, got to wonder how there's is a 60% decline thats huge makes me think someone missed a decimal point in the calculations.

Originally Posted by viper

This appeared in one of the local papers down here, the article is semi long with some interesting points being made.
I won't type it out as I am too lazy but took a photo of this summary of the new K5 virus and it's effect to date.
To be honest and they elude to it in the article these figures are perhaps not very accurate but it is a snap shot at the time.
I have kept the clipping so if anyone has any questions I will try to answer things as mentioned in the piece.
Hope the photo is clear enough to read for everyone.Attachment 89287

Well there is a lot of variance there isnt there. Good strike in Roxburgh, teviot & wanaka. Negative effect in Queenstown, Cromwell & nth otago WTF ?!?

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The wide variance in stats suggests poor sampling/too smaller counts on too few a days?

Originally Posted by veitnamcam

The wide variance in stats suggests poor sampling/too smaller counts on too few a days?

I failed stats in uni but that sounds about right

Originally Posted by 223nut

I failed stats in uni but that sounds about right

I failed school so had no chance of failing at uni !

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Originally Posted by veitnamcam

The wide variance in stats suggests poor sampling/too smaller counts on too few a days?

Maybe..Or probably more likely considerable variation in how effective the virus was in different populations. We saw the same here in Aus when k5 was released, even with good rigour applied to the pre and post release counts, some sites registered no change whatsoever and other sites were up around the 45% reduction.

Also ( and I maybe wrong here ) but I don't think the releases done at different sites were all done at the same time ?
Some sites may have got better results because of better conditions at time of release.
This year winter arrived hard and fast with what seemed and a short autumn. Flies were there one week and almost gone the next so a major vector of transmitting the disease became pretty dormant.
Also with the cold weather I have noticed on some days very few visible rabbits moving about and interacting with each other or the environment so may have had an effect.

Each release site is suppose to have a 20 km radius that over laps with the next site to generate total coverage.
I am not a fan of virus's being released into our country so personally I hope it's a flop, the current control methods work fine if the farmer / land owner puts in the effort.
As a farmer I would be grateful for this version of the virus, it cost them nothing as tax payers and local councils paid for it from my understanding so any reduction in numbers is a bonus and free.

This whole thing doesn't make any sense to me. As pointed out earlier in the thread, a planned virus release that is only expected to kill between one third and one half of the rabbits is a complete waste of time. It’s a short-term Band Aid at best. Add to that the obvious lack of hands on, proactive pest control by land owners, farm managers, tenants, etc, then the problem is just compounded.

When I was down in Otago last year I couldn't believe what I was seeing in places. We don't see anything like that up here in the Waikato.

My first experience of the rabbit problem was in the UK as a youngster, early to mid 80s. The rabbit numbers in Sussex and Surrey on the dairy farms were beyond comprehension, in the 70s as a boy they seemed to be consistent and we’d shoot a few with our air rifles and catch them with dogs. But in the early 80s numbers just exploded for some reason, possibly due to a change in fertilizer regime and pasture improvement.

On our farm, with the small fields and old hedgerows, the damage would extend into the pasture anywhere between 10m and 50m, eaten flat to the ground. It was worse where the fields were adjacent to the old copses on higher ground, that were left wooded eons ago. The impact on the dairy was significant and the businesses were struggling.

The old timers all remembered the myxomatosis outbreak in 1953 which wiped out almost every single rabbit in the country. But still there were a handful of survivors, plus those that were captured and kept out of harm’s way by sport shooters, and bob's yer uncle within 6-7 years the rabbit numbers were pretty much back to pre-myxo numbers. My grandpa went on about this time and time again, how incredible it was how they came back after not one was seen on the farm for over 2 years.

But that outbreak gave the rabbits resistance, and subsequent myxo releases - mostly illegal - didn't have anything like the impact.

In 1981 as a young teenager I was given a 20ga single shot, two ferrets and a Jack Russell called Knob and told to go and kill rabbits. After a summer learning the habits of rabbits, and varying degrees of success with the ferrets, we added two greyhounds we got free from the dog racer down the road. Now we were really in business, man what a dog, they caught the rabbits the ferrets chased out of the warren. I gave up with Knob as he kept getting stuck down the hole and I got sick of digging him out with the backhoe.

When I got a bit older I earned a 12ga Franchi 5 shot semi-auto and an old .22 Hornet. By 1984 we were driving the old Series III Land Rover pickups around the farm at night, with huge aircraft lights bolted to the roof powered by an additional alternator and controlled by the passenger in the cab, with two shooters standing in the rear. We would collect that many rabbits in one night that the shooters would be standing on a carpet of bunnies three deep across the whole tray, we had to dig a pit with the backhoe for all the carcasses. My right shoulder was a constant shade of light green and grey from the constant whack of the Franchi. We got a couple of knackered Cortina MK4s and cut holes in the roof and took out the back seat, it was easier to stand and steady yourself, one shooter and two up front driving and working the light made for a productive night.

Between the age of 13 and 17 we were out shooting rabbits in industrial numbers from vehicles from spring through to autumn, to the point at which it became too muddy. Then it was out on foot in winter with the dogs and ferrets, the .22 and a wee 410. In winter it was very productive to get the ferrets down into the depths of the warren, catch the largest and hardiest of the mature rabbits and the numbers the following spring were definitely reduced. It was pretty much a full time bloody job for a kid. One year, probably 1985, the myxo came back and clobbered the rabbits, we’d find them hopping around the diary all pussed up and out of it, so we’d hit them with a big stick and take the dead rabbit and stuff him down a fresh hole. But even then, numbers were only reduced by a bit, maybe a third max, then the following year it was all on again.

That’s how we controlled rabbits. None of this sit back and wait for a new virus bollocks. If you wanted to maximise your revenue, you had to stay on top of them, god knows how much it cost in shells over the years, we shot thousands and thousands of rounds.

I'd left England by the time calicivirus came along in the mid-90s, but it was exactly the same pattern - big wipeout followed by gradual resistance and a return to pre-release numbers.

If there isn’t a concerted effort by land owners in Otago to get experienced guns and dogs on the land working hard, they’re never gonna make the blindest bit of difference to rabbit numbers long-term. And the more farms and stations that get sold to eco-greeny American tech mega millionaires who want to hide away from Donald and his gang, the worse the problem will become! They are clueless!

Headcase took me to one of the release sites near Tekapo, and after eight weeks it was still teeming with rabbit. There were a lot of wallabies too. I bloodied my new Troy PAR15 with a Pulsar Trail XP50. Very entertaining!

Originally Posted by Yukon

Headcase took me to one of the release sites near Tekapo, and after eight weeks it was still teeming with rabbit. There were a lot of wallabies too. I bloodied my new Troy PAR15 with a Pulsar Trail XP50. Very entertaining!

Where? LOL

I'm not sure, it was dark! And bloody cold. Ask Headcase.

Just back from shooting steel in the Mackenzie Country. Talking to the station owner it is fast becoming evident that the virus release is a complete failure except the Nelson area where a different strain was used. Rabbit numbers are not reducing and there is very little evidence of the virus having any effect at all. This is not working and a complete waste of time. Keep shooting them guys.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/far...e-across-otago

Originally Posted by Mooseman

What is amazing is they are saying that they hope to achieve at least a 40 % kill on this new release. When I was still doing pest control work they always said you needed to be getting kill rates in the high 80 to 90 % to have any sort of effect on the populations. 40% will do very little except to promote increased breeding with the remaining population.
Back in the late 90's when it first hit my area in the BOP I had count lines established over 20km's of farmland and we counted the lines twice a year.
The year the illegal release was done I had counted close to 1100 rabbits pre the virus within a week it had spread through the whole area and when the post count was done I counted 32 rabbits.
We warned the farmers that these remaining rabbits would come back if left to there own devices, which they were and with a year and a half were back to pre virus levels. Problem now was you had rabbits that are resistant to any future releases. This is a different strain but 40 % is a pretty low kill rate I think. It will be interesting to see how it effects the populations over the coming months. One thing is for sure the rabbit will survive whatever man can throw at them.

It appears that what I said earlier is coming true. 40 % isn't enough of a kill to have any effect at all. New born and young rabbits are born with an immunity to disease the blood tests we did after the release in our area back in the late 90's confirmed that. One sure thing is that a concerted effort using poison and shooting will be a definite way to help control rabbits. Who knows the powers to be may decide to bring back Pest Destruction Boards, doing a full circle.