Ditch being shown boundaries by Garth Cumberland, chairman of the ADRG, a group that manages pest control on 1000ha covering 45 individual titles.

As the old saying goes, “A problem shared is a problem halved,” and this is proving particularly true as more and more of my clients are engaging with their neighbours and sharing all aspects of managing pest animals across multiple boundaries.

This makes a lot of sense as the types of pest animals we deal with are extremely mobile and their daily travels are not restricted by any form of fencing. This problem has been exacerbated with the now common subdivision of large farms into smaller lifestyle-type blocks and many find that treating pest animals on their land has a minimal and short lived effect as animals quickly move back in from outside the boundary, this leaves many feeling that good money has been spent for very little return.

The reinvasion issue is a complex one and exactly how it affects you depends on what pest species are present and what part of their habitat requirements your property provides. All pest animals require a certain level of cover i.e. nesting and den sites, and a range of suitable feeding areas such as seasonally available vegetation, grasses, seeds and so on. 

Seldom are all of these requirements provided by one property but even in situations where they are, the animals quickly increase in number and simply must spread out onto adjoining lands; so in either scenario everyone suffers eventually.

Engaging with your neighbours improves the economy of scale in terms of the size of the area and the number of animals that can be treated at one time; this dramatically increases the overall controlling effect and best of all it significantly reduces the cost to treat each property. 

As an example of this, I provided rabbit control to a 15 acre equine property in 2008; they had a serious problem and multiple visits were required to achieve the desired results. The cost to this property was just over $800. As rabbits were known to be prolific in the immediate area we began talking with adjoining landowners and by April 2009 we had 14 neighbours prepared to share the cost of another round of control.

Great results were achieved on this operation – dozens of burrows were fumigated and over 200 rabbits were shot, 60 possums were also accounted for, a common added bonus when engaging a professional night shooter. The resulting cost to each property was a little over $80 and the control effect was such that they are unlikely to require my services for at-least another year. Future control on these properties is only ever going to be maintenance from now on and the costs will continue to decrease each year.

Working with our neighbours is a skill that many of us have lost in these modern times; sharing the costs of effective pest control might be just what is needed to get us and our environment back on track.

Please help us to provide the advice you require by sending all pest animal questions to: info@coastalpestsolutions.co.nz