A staff report to tomorrow’s environmental strategy and planning committee said private landowners whose properties bordered public land had raised issues with the council about uncontrolled rabbit populations on neighbouring properties reinvading their properties after control measures had taken place.
"This issue is common near rail corridors and cycle tracks," the report said.
"Land occupiers and ORC staff have had limited success engaging with public agencies to enable effective control of rabbits on their properties."
The rules in the Otago regional pest management plan 2019-29 had limited bearing on public land and stopped staff from taking enforcement action "even when rabbit infestation issues are known".
As a result, staff recommended councillors ask chairwoman Cr Gretchen Robertson to write to government ministers highlighting "limited" rabbit control on Crown land and its effects on private land and those trying to control rabbit numbers there, the report said.
Public land accounted for more than 20% of all land in Otago, the report said.
So-called "good neighbour" provisions in the pest plan only applied to public land if the neighbours were "fully compliant", the report said.
In 2021, the Ministry for Primary Industries estimated the economic impact of feral rabbits had surpassed $195 million a year — up from $61m per year in 2009.
