Rabbit Sweep Details - 2025-27
Rabbit Control Capacity and Capability on the Bellarine
We are concerned with European rabbits and aim to increase the capability and capacity of the community actively reducing the number of rabbits on the Bellarine Peninsula. We believe this focus will also serve to indirectly reduce the number of feral cats and foxes. Rabbit management is complex and depends on the unique circumstances of any location. Our partnerships will address many facets of the work, sometimes in new ways, and connect land managers to the relevant resources (human, information, financial, equipment, etc.), they may need.
What is it?
Bellarine Landcare's project Rabbit Sweep, is a principled, long-term project about increasing land managers' capability and capacity to control rabbits.
At one level this means working more effectively on rabbit control (what we call capability) and more of it being employed on the Bellarine (what we call capacity).
Rabbit Sweep will support diversity-of-action that is custom-designed and sustainable for individual and neighbouring land managers. Diversity and inclusion will enable a wide-range of participants with carefully designed, inclusive information and training. We propose a community-led, place-based program offering sustainable control of rabbit populations, because it's organised by and shared among neighbours. Funding over 2 years will maximise collective impact over consecutive rabbit seasons.
But a second level goal is about having an effective approach to the task of rabbit control. Rabbits will probably be a problem into perpetuity, so this project is also about determining a role for Landcare and embedding processes, procedures and practices in a sustainable model respectful of the community participants and their place. This should render Rabbit Sweep self-generative and representative of land managers taking responsibility for their rabbit-induced problems.
Our continuing team, all for 2 years, includes Liddy Nevile (volunteer leader), Victoria Strachan, facilitator and program manager and David Lucas, (volunteer) and consultant. We will welcome casual volunteers and paid experts as appropriate.
To empower land managers, we will find what is relevant to their situation, encourage and help them to invite neighbours to join them, and augment technical how-to with tips and tricks from experienced rabbiters. We will offer them the Rabbit Sweep catalogue, and any of a series of check-lists to be developed, and connect them to technical information, volunteers and contractors. We will encourage and support longer-term, coordinated, sustainable rabbit management strategies.
Rabbit Sweep will benefit the environment, its biodiversity and biosecurity, and land managers' use of it. Contractors and volunteers will be helped to more easily engage with the community and participate in rabbit management. Initial research involved a community engagement model (see RMIT Research at https://rabbit-sweep.org/useful-docs/rmit-research/). The momentum from our recent PAP funded work and Blitz! event has encouraged us to continue our work. Voluntary attendance of experts at our Blitz! and that land managers and contractors covered the cost of significant demonstrations exhibited another level of community support, goodwill and engagement.
We also now have a number of partners in smaller projects that will enhance their and our capability. To maximise collective impact, we will help neighbours form self-supporting groups (clusters). Bellarine Landcare's community-led approach seems to thrive when it offers opportunities for regular, organised volunteer engagement (as exemplified at the Landcare Nursery). We aim to promote this model among volunteers and land managers.
Our process for working with land managers involves well planned steps aimed to develop clusters of collaborating neighbours controlling rabbits. Our partners have agreed to work with us to improve the infrastructure for rabbit control.
Who is involved?
Rabbit Sweeps' 'hub-and-spoke model' is an efficient, flexible, scalable and sustainable approach for connecting land managers to support, expertise, information, contractors, volunteers, etc. As partipants engage with the program, and thus connect with others, they can benefit from and contribute to the program. Developing the connections and ways of working is the focus of the program.
The model helps us organise thinking and activities, now and for the future. It has been used successfully in other industries and we are adapting it here to build capacity. Rabbit Sweep is the hub. We will have a separate spoke for each of our partners and supporters, and for rabbit control contractors, volunteers, future funding partners, etc.. Within 2 years, we will have at least 25 spokes for clusters. Information will flow through the hub to be gathered from and disseminated to relevant spokes.
The online Rabbit Sweep Catalogue brings together as partners, Rabbit Free Australia and the Centre for Invasive Species Solutions. We will launch the catalogue to build capability and capacity for online resource publishers to upload and monitor their information. We will promote the catalogue widely through our partners, print, and social media. The catalogue is crucial to making relevant and useful information in multiple formats available online without the need to visit multiple sites or rely on whatever an AI agent might choose to deliver. (For details see https://www.rabbit-sweep.org/resource-catalogue.)
Who are our partners?
- Lead: Bellarine Landcare Group Inc.
- Swan Bay Environment Association (SBEA)
- Bellarine Catchment Network (BCN)
- Darling Downs - Moreton Rabbit Board (DDMRB)
- National Feral Rabbit Management Coordinator - Heidi Kleinert
- Rabbit Free Australia
- Victorian Rabbit Action Network (VRAN)
- City of Greater Geelong
How?
The grant will be used to fund a Facilitator with three tasks:
- to help build at least 25 neighbourhood clusters each with approx. 5 land managers,
- to control rabbits, and
- to help build scalable infrastructure so the number of self-generative sustainable clusters can continue to grow.
Our on-ground-related work is based on 'use cases'.
The engagement process to build capability means the Facilitator will:
- develop 2-year project plan to manage time lines and meet milestones
- receive an enquiry - directly or by referral from partner organisations
- respond with offer to arrange meeting with initiator, neighbours, and Rabbit Sweep consultant and a facilitator. Building neighbourhood clusters will be more efficient, cost-effective and impactful than individual land manager engagement.
- help (if appropriate) neighbourhood cluster ppare customised proposal for action
- help connect cluster to consultants, contractors and/or volunteers, using the hub-and-spoke model
- check regularly with cluster members and encourage further action, problem solve
- report for Rabbit Sweep while respecting privacy, actions, successes, challenges, etc.
- provide tools including checklists and customised advice (to be further developed and refined by project)
- invite initiators to attend others' cluster meetings - to further build capability and capacity.
Additional activities to grow the infrastructure In addition to working directly with land managers, we will have a number of other supportive activities, usually working with our partners and supporters. These will strengthen the infrastructure in which all operate. They include building access to training, relevant information, communications, evaluation, and other activities that will be essential to the sustainability of the project in the future.
With what?
- Project lead Liddy Nevile 0.2 FTE + travel & comms expenses, 2 years (pro bono)
- Facilitator - 0.2 FTE, 48 weeks per year, 2 years
- Rabbit consultant- 25 cluster meetings,expert consultant 2 hours per week for 96 weeks
- IT support - maintenance, programming
- Facilitator's travel, comms and other expenses
- Admin - phone SIM, stationary, postage
- Admin - (contribution from BLG)
- Meeting expenses
- Publicity and PR expenses
What will be achieved?
Communications
Over two years: Comms to attract land managers, to promote the project and to maintain connections. 24 BLG newsletter items, 10 BCN newsletter items, 4 press releases, 30 social media posts, 10 Rabbit Sweep newsletters, and 10 mail-outs to regionally-grouped land managers, plus use of the website, etc.
25 Assessment / Surveys
The Facilitator will maintain records of activity with 25 clusters and gather data as appropriate to inform research and provide feedback to Rabbit Sweep participants.
Field Day
1 The Rabbit Sweep is not yet planning any field days but will work with the BLG RAG for one scheduled in October 2025 and others by invitation. Liddy Nevile will work on this, with the RAG, as a volunteer.
Mapping
25 Clusters will be encouraged to map rabbit warrens and harbour and share this information among themselves using RabbitScan. The Facilitator will map the location of active clusters and work with City of Greater Geelong to co-locate activity where possible..
4 Online Events
Registered Rabbit Sweepparticipants will be notified of online events that may be of interest and, where possible, participation will be enabled;(e.g. for Rabbit Free Australia events). Our partners often provide important opportunities for land managers so the Rabbit Sweep does not need to replicate them but can gain a lot from encouraging land managers to participate in them. This is mostly a capability building exercise.
Plans / Strategies
25 Local plans for cluster members will be developed by clusters (25) with assistance available from the Facilitator following initial site visit with rabbit consultant. Where possible, given Council plans for management work, clusters will be encouraged to coordinate and synchronise their activity with that of the Council or other public agency. In time, check-lists will be developed for land managers to guide local planning and coordination with public entities (eg CoGG).
4 Presentations
Rabbit Sweep will respond to requests for presentations on the Bellarine and actively seek them from other membership organisations in the region.
Research
1 The Rabbit Sweep have undertaken research to date and will continue to help others share research results and contribute their own. Rabbit Sweep work researching best practice both in terms of rabbit control and volunteer-based natural resource management will continue.
Training Event
25 Rabbit Sweep participants will work together to learn what they can and will do. Working with each other and voluntary or contracted experts in small groups has proven the most effective way to embed best practice. Training of this kind will take place at initial cluster meetings with experts and when on-ground work is being undertaken. All clusters will be encouraged to invite participants from other clusters to work with them to share expertise. There are 25 clusters x 5 land managers each so potentially 125 land managers will be trained in rabbit control capability.
Video / Audio Production
2 Short iPhone videos (1-3 minutes) will be collected and published by the Rabbit Sweep to offer 'tips and tricks' from experienced rabbit managers (numbers not counted here). The Lead has agreed with partners Rabbit Free Australia and the Darling Downs - Moreton Rabbit Board to prepare 2 video presentations for publication. One will describe the process of working on biosecurity in a peri-urban context and the other the quantification of quality characteristics of rabbit control activities.
24 Meetings
12 regular meetings with RAG, and 12 with BCN, in 2 years. Other meetings with project partners, participation in events they manage, etc.
Innovation of new rabbit control strategy
In parallel with working with land managers, the Rabbit Sweep will use the experience including the hub-and-spoke model to develop a new strategy for the Bellarine. The output will be scaleable, replicable, and many organisational aspects made easy and so, easily adopted in the future. The Rabbit Sweep team aims to make the process self-generative.
As one partner commented, "the rabbits must be scared!"
When will things happen?
Nov 25-Jan26 - involves project set up, development of project tools and testing of tools with 2-3 neighbourhood clusters. These clusters developed during last PAP grant. Communications with land managers about project. Project partners to provide land managers' referrals. Land managers will be encouraged to clean up properties before start of rabbit control activities. Feb 26 - May 26 - Rabbit control activities are best undertaken in autumn. Our goal is to establish 15 neighbourhood clusters before May 26 to take advantage of action during autumn. Project tools to be refined after land manager and partner feedback . Comms. strategy continues. June - Dec 26 - Engagement with 15 clusters continues and further 10 clusters to be identified. Jan - Nov 27 - Work with 25 clusters through autumn rabbit control season. Continue comms and refinement of project tools. Nov - Dec 27 - Evaluate and acquit funds. This project scope has been developed based on 2 year timeline to allow neighbourhood relationships to grow slowly (build trust & expertise) and allows for two rabbit control seasons. Meaningful data and outcomes.
How will all this be evaluated?
Success in rabbit control is recognised as not easily measured but the use of spot-light counts and warren location etc. will be encouraged. Clusters will be given Rabbit Sweep developed check-sheets and helped to use them to record activity and rabbit presence, lessons learned, achievements effected. Some evaluation of the success/otherwise will be undertaken by the Facilitator. But the successful development of management of rabbit control promotion by BLG is also important. That will be assessed by quantification of achievements in terms of participation in clusters, feedback from clusters evaluating the hub-and-spoke model's value, engagement of neighbours who previously might have not been involved, longer-term commitment to neighbourhood action, easy and suitable access to technique information using the website and catalogue, etc. Evaluation tools, including check-lists, will be developed and refined throughout the project. Data and feedback will be collected throughout the project (not just as the end) to inform the success of the model and so we can provide Ag Vic with a realistic measure of success.
How will risks be managed?
1. Loss of Staff. For previous PAP grant we were very unlucky because in the end it took 3 facilitators to complete the work. But we learnt that we could continue our work productively even when we had problems with availability. This time, we do not need to recruit new people to start work as Victoria Strachan has agreed to continue.
2. Land Manager Disengagement. Mitigated by our inclusive model reduces any risks associated with disengaged land managers etc. We have successfully engaged with many land managers who have indicated they are keen to join this project.
3. Lack of locally trained rabbit consultants. We have identified people who can provide necessary rabbit control skills.
4. Inability to meet project outcomes. Both Liddy and Victoria have strength in project management so we consider risk of failure for lack of capability very unlikely. A project plan will be developed to ensure that project outcomes are delivered on time.
5. Lack of volunteers . The project leader is actively involved in a number of other activities on a voluntary basis. BLG has an extensive volunteer base to draw on if needed. Both David and Liddy have committed to this project.
Bellarine Landcare has been operating on the Bellarine for many years and has attracted interest and participation across a number of domains. Rabbit Sweep is an established project of Bellarine Landcare. To date this project has and will continue to call upon members and others who offer time and wisdom to all we do for managerial advice; for pest control advice, and for community engagement. Rabbit Sweep is grateful for the support and are confident this support is ongoing. Victoria Strachan (PAP Facilitator) has worked in community development and project coordination over over 2 decades. Liddy Nevile set up Rabbit Sweep and has many years of experience as a land manager. Our work is very much managerial and can be undertaken satisfactorily part-time which makes sustainability easier. We will not be doing on-ground work ourselves or telling land managers how undertake works. We will direct them to resources, experts and contractors. We have chosen two years for the project to enable relationships, tools, and strategies to be developed and refined. Rabbit control is a long-term activity. To grow our project we would like additional participants but this may depend upon further funding becoming available to support it.