Today, the Otago Regional Council will use quad bikes to drop carrots laced with sodium fluoroacetate (1080) over nine properties between Ballantyne Rd and Mt Barker Rd.
It will be the last large poisoning operation of the year, and about two tonnes of the poison would be spread over the properties.
Regional council senior field adviser Peter Preston said warm weather in June and August meant the time period for poisoning was short this year.
Rabbit numbers in the Wakatipu Basin and Upper Clutha areas were higher than other parts of Central Otago and a dry autumn meant rabbit numbers could be particularly bad, Mr Preston said.
As the weather became warmer, rabbits would start eating grass and would leave most of the bait alone, Mr Preston said.
``We really haven't had a long period of cold hard frosts this winter, which means the timeframe for poisoning has been compacted quite a bit.''
The regional council is hoping to encouraging private pest control companies to take over rabbit control work on smaller properties, leaving the council to carry out rabbit control on bigger properties.
Director of environmental monitoring and operations Scott MacLean said a workshop would probably be held early in the new year aimed at encouraging more private involvement.
``There are a lot of rabbit control jobs out there that are actually relatively small-scale - important but small-scale - and what we are aiming to do is to have the private market pick up that work and give us the opportunity to focus on the large-scale aerial work.''
Mr McLean said the biggest environmental gains came from the bigger operations where the council could cover multiple properties from a single airstrip.
``That's what we are geared up to do, which meant there was a bit of a void with the smaller blocks. We found the small jobs were just tying up the resources.
``So it's very much a case of saying to private contractors there is a lot of work out there.''
Mr McLean said the council was happy to help aid and train people up on ``best practice rabbit control''.
Five or six companies attended last year's training workshop.
