A Rabbit Sweep Engagement Model
Please note: if you would like to contribute comments, please do so and they will be made available at the end of this document (click to go to comments).
What is the Rabbit Sweep wanting to achieve long term?
Please bear in mind, when reading this, that the Rabbit Sweep is yet another project for the Bellarine and will work as closely as possible with the others.
Long term, the Rabbit Sweep wants the rabbit population on the Bellarine to be controlled so the long term environmental goals of the community can be achieved. Exactly what the community wants for this final goal is to be determined in coming years by the community. Enabling it to be realised is the task of the Rabbit Sweep. Clearly the aims will only be achived if a large number of people help.
The work of the Rabbit Sweep might mean controlling the populations of feral cats, foxes and rabbits but the immediate task is focused on rabbits. Whatever the long term goal, the Rabbit Sweep, like most environmental protection organisations, needs to engage many more people in the work of controlling rabbits. So the priority for action is split between engaging more people and working to have fewer rabbits on the Bellarine. The Rabbit Sweep has two goals as a project:
- to make information about how to work on rabbit control available, useful, authoritative, and, above all, appropriate for landholders who do or don't have rabbit control expertise themselves, and
- to significantly increase the number of landholders with the capacity to manage their properties maintaining minimal rabbit populations.
How does the Rabbit Sweep envisage working?
There is a possibility that the best way for the Rabbit Sweep to proceed is to form a special-interest group to work across the Bellarine with all those concerned about the invasion of rabbits. The Rabbit Sweep needs the involvement of many who have particular interests that have brought them together, but who actually also have a rabbit problem. A network of people concerned about rabbits can co-exist with other special-purpose groups or, indeed, broad-focus graoups like the Bellarine Landcare Group. As a network, the Rabbit Sweep could work alongside other local groups and in association with Landcare, local and state government, farmers groups and other entities aiming to help them help themsleves. It is possible this would be best achieved by having a special-purpose Landcare group. As such a group, the Rabbit Sweep would fit into the Landcare network, contribute to it as to others, and operate in close collaboration with the Victorian Rabbit Action Network.
For advice about how to set up a Landcare group, see https://www.landcarevic.org.au/assets/Uploads/3.1-Starting-up-a-Landcare-group.pdf
For a number of other resources, see https://www.landcarevictoria.org.au/LVI/LVI/Resources/Guides_fact_sheets_templates.aspx?hkey=54fc0948-c0e9-4fed-bac1-138f80497753
Rabbit Sweep and the Partner Against Pests
The Rabbit Sweep proposed a PAP grant for the following purposes. The grant application was altered by a small BLG ad hoc committee. BLG was awarded $30k.
The way in which the Rabbit Sweep described the activities to be undertaken is documented below in italics - the grant rules otherwise.
$20,800 facilitator funding (that is 416 hours, equivalent of 1 day/week for 12 months)
- this is a contract position so the person will work from home with the support of the facilities at the Bellarine Environment Centre
- it is clear that there will be more than enough administrative work for the facilitator so actual rabbit abatement expertise will not be required of them (although maybe a bonus if it is there)
Expenses for facilitator - $4500 for mileage, software, communications and meeting expenses
- use of these funds will need to be considered - $1400 is earmarked for software development by Patrick Jackson.
2 training events presented by facilitator for volunteers who will engage in small group meetings
- it seems these will be best if they address the topics how to arrange a Landcare activity and where to get whatever is needed. Currently this is a skill based on experience but it will be more useful if what needs to be done is clearly articulated for event hosts and they can follow a checklist which can then be recorded by the Rabbit Sweep for admin use. Once the content is sorted, it should be easy to make an online process with explanation available for the future.
2 workshops facilitated with Rabbit Sweep speakers
- that is, the facilitator will convene and manage the workshops. It seems these will be best if they are small group on-ground workshops so participants can assess what is done and what they might want to do in a different situation. As such events will not cover the full range of abatement activities, they should be structured so that, for example, fumigation does not take place at the same time as warren identification meaning an expert licensed fumigator can quickly do their job and particiants can choose to be exposed to this or otherwise. The experts will, of course, be expert in different aspects of the process and will explain their processes, whatever, and advise participants how to replicate them themselves or by getting contractors etc. The use of techniques needs to be understood from the perspective of what to do and what risks are to be mitigated.
3 publications including brochures for printing and online distribution
- note this was not funded by this grant but is available as an in-kind contribution
3 presentations
- it is envisaged that at least three times there will be an opportunity for a Rabbit Sweep volunteer to speak to groups and tell them what the Rabbit Sweep does and to encourage them to participate. Already this has been done with Rotary, the BCN and several others are being organised now. The facilitator will be expected to respond to a request to find a presenter or to solicit an opportunity.
Contributions to Rabbit Sweep newsletter
- note this was not funded by this grant but will be available as an in-kind contribution
$1400 for an online library cataloguing system
- to be developed professionally
A [refereed] paper for the National Landcare Conference
- note this was not funded by this grant but will be available as an in-kind contribution. It should be published, in full or otherwise, 3 times.
Development of future engagement strategy
- review of early activities and development of plans for the rest of the year and the future
In addition, there is to be available, as promised in the grant pplication:
- 2 hours per week of BLG facilitator's time
- 4 hours per week project oversight time
- 4 hours per week library management time
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What is the City of Greater Geelong doing?
Knowing what CoGG is doing and where can be a wonderful resource for landholders. The Rabbit Control Plan of CoGG is available at https://www.geelongaustralia.com.au/common/Public/Documents/8db0f35b5c1b215-rabbitcontrolplan2021-2026.pdf
CoGG has identified two areas on the Bellarine for immediate work at Curlewis/Drysdale and the Swan Bay area.
CoGG says it will do the following:
Collaborate and empower
We’ll establish new and foster existing relationships with land management partners and government agencies. We’ll collaborate with other land managers and the community to achieve greater value for investment. We’ll also continue to seek advice from industry experts and rabbit action networks.As collaboration is a critical component of an effective, long-term rabbit control program, this will be our focus. Effective collaboration will also build trust and improve relationships with stakeholders and the community. We’ll support and empower community groups and rural landowners to undertake effective rabbit control.
Communicate and engage
We’ll communicate plans, experiences, learnings and results with stakeholders and the community. Our messages will focus on how and why effective rabbit control benefits the community. We’ll listen to the community about where and how rabbits are impacting them. We’ll also celebrate our successes with them. We’ll create resources to engage with and educate the community about the impacts of rabbits and the importance of employing an integrated control program when managing rabbits on their property. We’ll empower community groups and landowners to effectively control rabbits on a landscape wide by running training and incentive programs and encouraging a coordinated approach.
CoGG says:
MANAGING RISK
... Our goal is to be a leader when it comes to managing safety and risk. We will continue to address risks by applying a variety of risk management tools, including: • risk registers • risk assessments• site hazard identifications• risk management plans and hazard maps• safe work method statements• safe operating procedures and • contractor safety checklists.
The CoGG Rabbit Control Plan is a wonderful resource for those concerned about rabbts and it is recommended to all having a copy and reading it carefully. Planning activities that can work in collaboration with the CoGG team is highly recommended.
What is Agriculture Victoria doing?
The Department handles many topics but rabbits is an important one. The Department supplies info about how to look after rabbits that are pets and how to control rabbit populations - see https://agriculture.vic.gov.au/search?query=rabbits
However, Ag Vic has a lot of resources at https://agriculture.vic.gov.au/biosecurity/pest-animals/invasive-animal-management/integrated-rabbit-control
The Rabbit Sweep has learnt that integrated management of rabbits is necessary. Very good information explaining all the challenges and techniques is available on this Ag Vic site. There are some very good videos on a wide range of topics.
What is VRAN doing?
VRAN is the Victorian Rabbit Action Network. The website is at https://vran.com.au/
VRAN has numerous helpful resources. stories from landholders who have tackled the rabbits on their properties, opportunities for landholders and others to join training sessions and learn from experts and you can contact them if there is anything else you need. VRAN publishes a newsletter to which people can subscribe and from which you can learn about demonstrations, bootcamps, and other activities provided by VRAN.
The Rabbit Sweep is in contact frequently with VRAN and VRAN experts are frequently available to help Bellarine rabbiters. The VRAN team is a wonderful go-to companion for rabbiters on the Bellarine.
So, in all, what significant resources are available?
The available resources, wherever, include:
- people power
- money
- equipment
- expertise
- administrative support eg insurance
People-power
But above all, there is a dearth of people engaged with the task compared to the size of the task. So the resource of priority is engaged people, of whatever age, skill level, primary interest, physical fitness, .....and whether or not they own or are responsible for property. In some cases, rabbit control has been undertaken by and with government agencies and neighbourly groups have collaborated, but in general, the efforts have not been co-ordinated across the region and invasive escapees quickly appear to reinstate the problem.
With respect to the resources:
- somehow,
- people are plentiful across the Bellarine but few are engaged in this work
- many people have interests they pursue with others as members of special interest groups
- many of those people also have land and a problem with the populations of rabbits and want the environment to enjoy biosecurity and sustainability
- some people have plenty of money but typically, those with money will only spend it if they see a return for their investment
- legal commitments do not make much difference in this context, regretfully, but social pressure is rich on the peninsula.
- in general, equipment required is available to be hired or borrowed
- expertise is immediately available in the form of live advice, demonstrations, and online how-tos. Where expert info is not available, knowing that it can be sought and provided quickly is important (the Rabbit Sweep library will address this issue).
Money
Currently, rabbits cost the community millions of dollars per year. Landholders have a legal obligation to manage invasive pests on their properties. So it could be that the dollars now spent managing the damage from rabbits could be used to control the rabbits. Indeed, this is what will have to happen but it will only happen if sufficient rabbit abatement activity starts to happen. The governments, federal, regional and local do not expect to pay for what landholders need to do but they do fund organisations to help landholders. The Rabbit Sweep has been funded to try new way of working on the Bellarine to better help landholders realize their responsibilities and help mmake the environment biodiverse and biosecure.
Equipment
There is a wide range of equipment used in rabbit control starting from a simple garden spade to a huge digger. Some equipment is available to be borrowed, some to be hired and some that must come with a driver. What is available where is not well-known at present but hopefully such information will be organised as part of the Rabbit Sweep library work.
Expertise
There is an incredible range of expertise involved in rabbit management. The aim of the Rabbit Sweep project is to make it as easy as possible for those trying to control rabbits to get access to the knowledge and experts they will need to help them. Partly, the library will make such information available online and easily discovered, but the Rabbit Sweep participants are also likely to make themselves available to share what expertise they have. Ultimately, the Vitorian Rabbit Action Netowrk, VRAN, is the go-to place for such expertise and the Rabbit Sweep will continue working closely with them. Some information events will be offered by the BLG Rabbit Action Group, some by VRAN, and some for the meetings and workshops organised as part of the Rabbit Sweep.
But those seeking expertise, knowledge and advice have a role to play. It is really helpful if people wanting infomation they can't find, let the Rabbit Sweep know what they would like so it can be made available to them and others.
Admin and other support
One of the major concerns with on-ground work involving volunteers is the issue of insurance. It is available but comes with conditions, of course. Permits are also an issue - some are very tightly controlled, others allow for supervision of people without licences. These issues are important when planning on-ground work but hopefully a checklist will be developed that will guide anyone holding an event through the process. Another aspect of the work envisioned is that there are many people who care for the environment but do not like killing animals. Sensitivity to this issue is always of concern.
What is the immediate strategy?
Given that the priority is engagement of many more people, the logistics of making contact, training them etc. according to a snowball model of engagement has been chosen. This means engaging people who engage other people. There are some activities that will require the participation of licensed experts, such as fumigation and warren implosion, others that will require lower-level expertise, usually based on experience. In some cases, preparatory work can be undertaken and then, perhaps when other participants have left the scene, the nastier work can be undertaken, including by experts and/or contractors.
How does the strategy work?
The Rabbit Sweep is a very small, mostly voluntary, organisation. It cannot solve the rabbit problem. It could not even expect to train all the rabbiters required to control rabbits across the peninsula. The goal is to enable groups of people to engage yet other people who can help and undertake ground activities. The model is therefore a snowball model - ask participants to help with work and learn about it so they can conduct activities on their private property. It is assumed that many with expertise will continue to offer to help others and support them. The practical knowledge, skills, and equipment needed will be sourced by and for the group. The Rabbit Sweep library catalogue should help them with this.
This means:
- a group of Rabbit Sweep volunteers will be invited to nominate one or two of their group to a session to learn all about the admin aspects of hosting a Landcare event. Such an event will be led by the Rabbit Sweep facilitator. Initially these events will be face-to-face but with the goal of capturing what is necessary in an online resource that can be used by others in the future.
- the group will organise their working event including volunteer experts in both the planning and conduct of the event according to the circumstances. These events will help participants understand what is necessary for managing such events and set them up to run such events in the future - with neighbours, friends, interest groups, or whatever.
- in return, the group members will be encouraged to use their experience to run their own events where others help them on their private properties. The idea is that by giving help people will learn how to ask for and manage help.
It is not expected that the events held locally will involve more than 8-10 people but they may, of course.
The advantage of this distribution of effort is that it is also the distribution of relevant skill. The skill sought is the ability to convene a safe, entertaining and effective working bee with expert participation alongside undertaking the various rabbit control activities.
What must accompany each capacity building exercise is social satisfaction and, of course, safety etc. It will be emphasized that after working together, it is often nice to sit and chat over a BBQ or other suitable snack.
To ensure participants, particularly those not usually engaged in rabbit control, are able to safely and appropriately conduct their group activities, they will learn to manage the challenges of planning and will include all the relevant aspects of administration, health and safety in the field.
As there is already a considerable amount of rabbit control work being undertaken by government agencies, at all levels, it will help if there is significant exchange of information about who is doing what shared, as appropriate. A local council team working on rabbit control on public land will want to know and engage with neighbouring landholders to see how both can benefit from coordination of their activities. Similarly, where contractors are involved, landholders can probably benefit financially if they can share contractual work and its cost.
Conducting a rabbit control event usually involves some expenses, eg advertising, registration, insurance, perhaps involvement of Aboriginal Elders, contracting with professionals for certain aspects of the work, etc., and ensuring each event is evaluated and reported. It would be wonderful to be able to provide some funds to participants so the potential for this will be explored. The Victorian Rabbit Network has used a similar model and those trained who were given some funds went on to work with their local communities as proposed.
One of the features of the snowball model is that it is very flexible. Land holdings on the peninsula vary incredibly, as do many other of the relevant factors for rabbit control. For this reason, there is no intention to mandate techniques and practices but it is important to ensure all reasonable techniques are well documented online. It is important there is provision for comments about the resources which will be discoverable using the Rabbit Sweep library.
How will the strategy be evaluated?
Documenting the process and recording before-and-after scenarios is an important part of environmental work. So what is done to the environment and how it responds will be documented. But another important part of the work is making sure more people are undertaking rabbit control work. People who participate will be asked to evaluate the experience they have, how it might be improved, and what they plan to do in the future. In addition, it will be important to evaluate how working as a network of rabbit controllers has been good or otherwise for the Rabbit Sweep, for the groups involved and for participating groups.
What is the long-term strategy?
In June 2024, the Rabbit Sweep is required to publish a ten-year strategy to satisfy an existing Landcare grant. It is, of course, not appropriate to determine in 2024 the activities for the next ten years but it is very necessary to have a sense of what should be done for the next decade given it will take at least that time to make a difference to the rabbit populations. It is also noteworthy that by the end of the next decade, it is very likely that the possibilities will have changed. Such practices as the use of gene drives can be expected to be available and AI systems installed in burrows and elsewhere are likely to be in effect. Currently, technology is used to monitor pests and extending its use to delivery of control technologies is clearly indicated. In terms of genetic solutions, the science is already developed but there is a need for careful testing and possibly legislation that will be expected before it is utilised.
It could be that one would choose to do nothing and wait for the future but that never works. Instead, we propose a cycle of action - evaluation - modification - action .... again and again ...
As the process grows, including more and different clusters of people, it is believed social awareness of the problem of rabbits on the Bellarine will grow. In the end, it would be good if landholders were ashamed to admit they had not made an effort to deal with the rabbit population, even if all they had done was to ask for help.
Comments
Travis' comments:
- I envisioned that the facilitator role would fulfil the role that the State Government Department extension officers once provided. The facilitator role would fill the “community connector” gap to improve the current situation. The role would be to raise community awareness and understanding of the harm that rabbits cause and help coordinate and drive local community action. The facilitator would bring together groups of landowners, land managers, government agencies and stakeholders to increase the quality and quantity of rabbit control occurring across the Bellarine. The facilitator would prepare and coordinate a larger demonstration and awareness raising event, but also smaller cluster group events too. The facilitator would be the key community contact person on the Bellarine for those in the community wanting to learn about controlling rabbits and how they can work together with their neighbours. Demonstrated successes could be repeated in a consistent, thorough manner when coordinated by the same expect person, over and over again.
- I am not too keen on the “cascade” approach. I think that the facilitator needs to be the key “expert” contact person to directly educate and help coordinate action rather than the cascade, train the trainer type model. I think that there is a high likelihood that the key best practice techniques, risk mitigation measures and expert knowledge would get lost/diluted/confused as it cascades down. This would lead to more ineffective rabbit control which would lead to more local groups of landowners giving up and the problem worsening.
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Just to follow up on Travis’s comments, David has made the following comments re the responsiblities of the Rabbit Facilitator:
- Meet with Landholders and identity any training needs, where there’s a cluster of landholders interested in rabbit control, coordinate between landholders, public land managers particularly CoGG, golf clubs, and other land managers, e.g Barwon Water.
- Provide basic advice on what they need to do to complement any rabbit control action by government or similar in their local area, to maximise effect.
- Coordinate any training of landholders - work out in conjunction with VRAN to organise workshops.
- Ensure landholders understand practical details of on the ground rabbit control, such as rabbit proofing infrastructure, tricks of the trade to maintain effective rabbit control most easily.
- Collating and validating the data in the Catalogue.
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Responses to comments
The comments suggest what would be wonderful but unfortunately all we are lucky enough to have is a person one day a week to help with administration of the program. In that short time, they will need to draw upon our wonderful volunteer experts, and there are more and more of them, and help organise how the experts' time will be used and how those who attend our events will be looked after and safe as well as giving them a chance to learn and critique what is happening. It is certainly hoped that the facilitator will be able to organise and help with the process of getting online all the information participants will need to do their work.
In fact, there is no funding for a rabbit expert but as most of those who now know how to do particular things have learnt for themselves, one suspects there are lots more who can do that. The job of the Rabbit Sweep and thus the facilitator is to enable more people to engage with learning and doing rabbit control. The problem many people have right now is lack of information, so, like CoGG, we need to develop checklists and video how-tos and stories and places to view what happens and ....a lot for one person to do given only one day a week.
In addition to what has been planned, there can be a weekly chat session where questions and answers can be canvassed and recorded for others to access, and hopefully those who know how to do something or have had a noteworthy experience (good or bad) will share their story with others.
You may note that Facebook and other social media are not being mentioned. This is in the belief that the quality of information is important as is people's privacy.
Comments from Sophie and responses from Liddy in a MS Word document
See https://environmentbellarine.sharepoint.com/:w:/s/BellarineLandcareGroup/EVHo-A7OGbhOtpAl4-JbjZ4B_AHWLnzOXSyzypsIKFF29A?rtime=995Pk6Np3Eg