Thread: Cheap thermal or night vision

Tell me more please Guys - I look after pest control at the Te Puna Quarry Park - we have most of the pests under good control - but rabbits have got us beat!!
They decimate plants around the gardens - volunteers put new plants in one day - rabbits eat them that night - mesh surrounds look crap, Treepel deterrent works for a while, poison is too risky where children and dogs are around - we gas rabbit burrows if they are active but they are difficult to find. The little buggars sit and look at me when I walk past but run for cover as soon as the contractors turn on a spotlight at night.
Council will not allow anyone but an approved contractor to shoot rabbits - and then only at night (understandable in a public park) - they start at 10pm and go to about 2am - $330 per shoot - four shoots this year produced 53 rabbits at about $23 each. I reckon they would be lucky to get 50% of the rabbit population because we see plenty of live ones the next day. Contractors tell me the rabbits are very skittery when the spotlights are turned on and think that someone is spotlighting or dogging them.
I reckon the contractor we use should be using thermal scopes - but they reckon they are too expensive ($9k to $12k) and not that effective.
I know that DRC who do all of PNCC pest control over large areas are finding thermal imaging very effective.
I reckon we need to find a shooter who has thermal imaging gear and who would like to shoot rabbits at a reasonable cost for a Community organisation - if they had the right gear and procedures Council would probably approve.
Any thoughts about type, costs and availability.