Clarity on night vision
Ed Cook compares night-vision and thermal-imaging equipment with more conventional methods
Being able to see in the dark without a light has become the norm over the past few years. Many use night-vision and thermal-imaging equipment and this has replaced bright, battery-powered lights for night-time pest control. Is it essential? Well, that depends on your ability with other control methods or the situation in which you want to reduce a pest population.
Essential?
If you can’t set a snare, train a dog or work with ferrets but want to get a rabbit, then it might be essential. If the area doesn’t suit other methods, or you need to employ a subtle method, then using night vision is a good way to do things. But despite what many think, it is not a magic cure.
Even with the best equipment, such as a moderated and accurate rifle, rabbits ain’t daft. They soon ‘clock on’ to danger. Wiping out a population in a given area is likely to need a mixture of methods. Rabbits soon learn what infrared equipment, gunfire and movement mean and become jumpy and reluctant to come out of their burrows.
Employing a range of methods keeps them guessing, resulting in a reduction in the population to a tolerable level. But then rabbits do what they do best and multiply. That’s fine if you are shooting for sport and meat for the table, but I’m doing it for a living and need results.
Night vision or lamping?
The next question I often get asked is can you kill more rabbits with night vision than lamping? In a small area on foot then the answer would be “Yes”, but if you need to cover more ground I think a combination of a quad bike, .410 shotgun and a lamp is an unbeatable combination on arable land.
There are other factors involved, including weather conditions. For example, a windy night allows you more opportunities as the rabbits travel farther. That said, if they have been pestered by predators they are likely to be closer to the hedge and burrows because they provide safety.
Night vision can be expensive, so do you need to spend a fortune to get a good setup? I think a lot depends on what calibre you want to employ. If you use centrefires, then the more you spend the better because you will be operating at longer ranges. However, you have to remember that the whole point of night vision is to shoot things in darkness.
If it’s a long way you will need to walk closer to bring it in to range if you are using cheaper equipment. I say walk because I feel it is a much better way of doing things when using night vision and complements covert night-vision/thermal pest control.
Means to an end
Shooting is a means to earn a living and nothing more to me. Guns can be utilised via night vision or with a lamp, but I do enjoying running dogs at night and lamping with birds of prey. In those situations, night vision does not really bring much to the table.
Some might argue using night vision is cheating and, while I use it a fair few nights of the week, I’m fully aware that without the aid of other methods delivered in a semiscientific way I would not be as effective. The use of night-vision and thermal-imaging equipment is amazing and shows you a totally new world, but it is only another tool in the box for the control of rabbits.