As cook and compere Alison Lambert provided plenty of encouragement, participants in an Otago University Students Association Orientation competition tackled the demanding task of skinning three hares and cutting up portions for cooking.
None of the hare meat was actually eaten, and pieces of chicken were subsequently cooked up, barbecue-style, for hungry onlookers.
At one point, the rigours of hare preparation proved almost too much for one of the contestants, and a couple of onlookers soon also decided they had had enough.
But another student onlooker, who had done a fair bit of rabbit-shooting and related cooking while growing up in Central Otago, enjoyed the event, which he jokingly termed a "post-apocalyptic display".
Dentistry student Meghan Haggerty-Drummond said the "road kill" contest, which was watched by dozens of students, was "not something you're going to see every day".
At times, the hare preparation had been a "bit gross", but overall the event had been "quite cool" and the participants had performed "pretty well", she said.