Shooters' cheeky ad catches farmers' attention

Two "old blokes" from the big smoke have received a warm response to their cheeky advertisement offering their services, free of charge, to help clean up Central Otago's rabbit problem.

Lower Hutt businessmen Bruce Mason and Arch Bowman placed an advertisement in the Lakes District and Central Otago News last week, offering to relieve a few cockies of their rabbits.

"We are two old blokes, early sixties, who have now cleaned off the local rabbit population in the Wairarapa farms we have been privileged to hunt on over the last twenty years and now need another friendly farmer," they said in the advertisement.

"The back, the hips and the knees say we should flag away the roar this year and come south to sunny Central Otago and help a few cockies with their rabbits."

For a good rabbit hunting spot, the duo even offered to swap allegiance as Hurricanes supporters to Highlanders fans for the week they were in Central Otago.

"I thought mentioning we'd swap from Hurricanes to Highlanders supporters might get us a bit of attention," Mr Mason said, when approached by the Otago Daily Times.

"The response we've received to the ad has been great - people have seen the funny side, and the consensus is, there's no need to change allegiance to the Highlanders after all."

The men have been mates since they were toddlers and although neither has a rural background, they are both keen on hunting, shooting and fishing. Mr Mason runs an import company and Mr Bowman is a meat broker.

"It's getting very hard now to get on properties here around Wellington to do some hunting, and the same applies with duck shooting, so we thought we'd look a bit further afield," Mr Mason said.

A couple of station owners were among those who wanted to take up the rabbiters' offer and the two men now plan a hunting trip to Central Otago in April, and hope it is the first of an annual visit south.

"We supply our own ammo and everything and all we ask is a shearers' quarters or a hut somewhere to set up camp for the week."

They had thought about taking part in the 24-hour Alexandra bunny hunt held every Easter, but decided if they were travelling to Central Otago, they would rather spend a longer stretch of time rabbit hunting.

Mr Mason was pleased to hear rabbit numbers were on the increase in the region.

"That's good news for us . . . breed them up and we'll sort them out."

- lynda.van.kempen@odt.co.nz