No splitting hares: it's the great rabbit census

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More of them than cows ... farmer Neil France has given up trying to control the rabbits that plague his dairy farm near Camden.
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NEIL FRANCE might be a dairy farmer but his 365-hectare property near Camden is home to more rabbits than cows. Mr France reckons the number of wild rabbits roaming the farm has doubled during the decade he has lived there.

"There's a hell of a lot of them," says Mr France, who runs a herd of 120 Friesians. "They're scattered over the whole place but they are getting worse and worse. I can watch rabbits from the cow shed while I'm milking and cleaning up."

Mr France is among a growing number of farmers who, like the farmers of the past, says there seems little point in trying to control the pest, even though their warrens have left bald patches on parts of his land. "The way rabbits breed, I'm not going to keep up with them," he says.

Next month Australians will be asked to help count wild rabbits as part of a rabbit census.

The RabbitScan project (www.rabbitscan.net.au) is encouraging members of the public, schoolchildren and community groups to enter their rabbit sightings onto a Google map so that experts can gain a clearer picture of Australia's rabbit problem.

More: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/no-splitting-hares-its-the-great-rabbit-census-20090426-ajdd.html

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