RUNWAY RABBITS
Ed Cook embarks on a nighttime ferreting operation to remove rabbits causing a danger to aircraft
Ed Cook uses ferrets at night to remove rabbits from an airport.
I’m lucky that I get to work in some weird and wonderful places. No two rabbiting jobs are the same. Although a good percentage of our workload is on farmland, we do carry out rabbit control in all manner of areas with various land uses. It wasn’t unusual to receive a call about removing rabbits from an airport.
There wasn’t a vast amount of rabbits present, but their digging was a danger to aircraft. On visiting the site, it was decided the only way to do the job safely was at night, when the runway wasn’t in use. Shooting wasn’t a viable option due to the lack of backstops and it would have taken a few nights to have had a notable impact, even if it was safe.
The burrows were open, so we decided on a nighttime ferreting operation.
Nighttime approach
Ferreting at night isn’t for everyone, things that go wrong in daylight can multiply at night. Thankfully nighttime ferreting isn’t something I have to do often, (that said I’ve got two such jobs booked in this week!) but it pays the bills.
The process is much the same as it is during the day, but you rely on longnets instead of purse nets. You don’t use torches because they are cumbersome and it’s better to allow your eyes to adapt to the level of darkness.
White ferrets are preferred for this job because once your eyes adjust they are relatively easy to spot in open ground. You can also fit flashing lights to the locater collars, and it’s certainly a quick way to find out if your ferrets are epileptic! Ferrets with light systems can be seen nearing a hole from some distance and it’s obvious once they are on top.
Dancing in the moonlight
For both day and night work I use handmade hemp nets, which I make myself to my own specifications. I use them in the traditional form and encircle burrows once marked by one of my dogs. Of course, in such an area the use of dogs has to be cleared with management first.
Moonlit and still nights are better for this kind of ferreting, but the customer wanted them gone ASAP so we had to work with a nearing half moon. This was fine and there was only a slight breeze. It is helpful if there is no wind as you can normally hear a ferret or a rabbit below and above ground. It is also easier to know what the dog is doing.
Marking burrows
It wasn’t long before my reverse 3/4 collie cross lurcher, Riot, was marking a burrow and we had the longnets up. A ferret was entered and they soon bolted one by one. Riot intercepted a few, but those she missed were entangled in the nets. The night carried on like this with the odd dig to the ferret. Once finished, we double-checked the area with Riot to make sure we hadn’t missed any, and we left the site with a bag of 16 rabbits.