Rabbit — Photos Public Domain · Public domain

Oryctolagus cuniculus

Best season: Year-round; numbers peak late summer
When they move: Dusk and dawn, and through the night
Country: Dry open country - Central Otago, Mackenzie, Marlborough, coastal sand
How hard: The most forgiving species here, and genuinely useful practice.

How they behave, and what that means

They live in warrens and rarely stray far from one, so a shot animal is usually replaced by another from the same ground within days. Eyesight is good at detecting movement, and they run in a curve back toward cover rather than straight away.

Sign to look for

Warrens and burrow entrances, scattered pellet piles, scrapes and grazed-down pasture

Tips

Work the ground between the warren and the feed at last light.
They freeze first and run second - a still rabbit is often watching you.
Landowners in rabbit country will often say yes quickly.
RHDV is used as a control tool in some districts; ask before you take meat.

Where you’ll find them

Open farmland, tussock and river flats. Often shot at night from a vehicle with permission, which makes landowner consent essential rather than optional.

Dogs and 1080

Rabbit control uses a range of toxins, not only 1080. Ask the landowner what has been laid before bringing a dog.

Check 1080 operations

Where they are

Widespread

Everywhere. Finding them is not the problem — getting somewhere you may hunt them is.

Most of these are logged by the public rather than by hunters, so a cluster is a real sign the animal is about and out where it can be seen — it is not a record of where people hunt. But records follow tracks, roads and campsites, so empty country usually means nobody has walked it with a phone rather than that there is nothing there. Presence, not density.

Occurrence data from GBIF.org.

Recorded in these regions

Records, not animals: each region page has its blocks, huts and permit areas.

Want to hunt this?

Most of the country is privately owned. Build a profile a landowner can trust, then ask the property you want.

Create your hunter profile

Why people shoot them

Control, and good eating if you want it.

Rabbits wreck pasture and a bad year costs a farm real money. Young rabbits are excellent eating; hares are strong and less commonly kept. Most shot at night for control are left.

What the landowner wants

Numbers. Rabbit shooting is often the easiest permission to get, and the one most likely to lead to being asked back for something bigger.

What to shoot a rabbit with

A .22 rimfire is the standard tool, and for most of this work it is the right one.

These are small, thin-skinned animals usually taken close, often at night with a light. Power is not the problem — accuracy and knowing where the round stops are. A rimfire round carries well over a kilometre.

What people use

.22 LR — the default for possums and rabbits at close rangeprivate land only
.22 WMR or .17 HMR — flatter and harder-hitting for longer shotsprivate land only
.222 or .223 — where shots stretch out, or on hares in the open

Anything marked private land only is below DOC’s minimum and may not be used for hunting on public conservation land — lawful on a farm with the owner’s permission, not lawful on DOC land. If a trip covers both, take the centrefire.

Watch out

The risk here is the backstop, not the animal. Rimfire rounds ricochet off hard ground and skip off water. Note where you are, too: a .22 is the right tool on a farm and unlawful for hunting on public conservation land, where nothing below .222 Remington is permitted.

On public conservation land, there is a legal minimum

Only centre fire rifles of calibre .222 Remington or larger may be used for hunting, or crossbows and bows that meet the minimum standard specified by DOC.

Hunting with any shotgun, rimfire rifle, .17 or .22 hornet calibre, air rifle or tracer and incendiary type ammunition is forbidden.

That is DOC’s hunting permit condition, and it applies wherever the permit does. On private land the landowner sets the terms — but the reason for the rule does not change with the fence line. Read the permit conditions

Read further

Effective game killing — Terminal Ballistics Research Nathan Foster, in Taranaki, has spent decades documenting what bullets actually do to these animals — red deer, tahr, chamois, sika, pigs, goats. If you read one thing about this, read him rather than an overseas chart built around whitetail and elk. He sells books alongside the free knowledge base, which is worth knowing; the research is still the best there is.
Cartridge-by-cartridge research Already own a rifle? Start here and read about what you have, rather than about what to buy.
Matching cartridge to game — Hunter-ed The platform US state agencies use for hunter education. Good on the principle.

These are starting points, not prescriptions. Shot placement and bullet construction beat calibre nearly every time, and a rifle you shoot well beats a more powerful one you flinch with — which is an argument for practising more, not for taking less gun.

After the shot

Small bodies spoil fast. Gut it now, not at the truck.

Standing over it: Paunch it where it falls and hang it somewhere with air moving. A rabbit left whole in a warm pack for an afternoon is finished.
Eating it: Rabbit is mild, lean and one of the easiest wild meats to give to somebody who is nervous about game.

Worth knowing

Look at the liver as you gut it. Spots, lumps or an odd colour, and the sensible answer is to leave the animal.

Getting it out, butchered, and what the law says about selling it

Before you go

Seasons, permits, firearms rules and area closures differ by region and by land status, and they change. We don’t publish those — a stale copy of a rule is worse than none. We do map the land itself: boundaries, public conservation land and unformed legal roads. So find the country here, and check the rules with whoever sets them:

Permits for public land Department of ConservationA permit is required to hunt public conservation land, and conditions vary by block.
Firearms licence and rules Te Tari Pūreke — Firearms Safety AuthorityLicensing, storage, and what you may carry and where.
What a paper road lets you do Herenga ā Nuku AotearoaThe Outdoor Access Commission. They define what an unformed legal road, a marginal strip or an easement actually entitles you to — passage is not permission to hunt, and the land either side stays private.Find one on our map
Regional pest and hunting rules Your regional or district councilPest management plans, wallaby containment areas, and vehicle access on unformed roads.

And on private land, the landowner sets the conditions — times, areas, and which animals they want taken. Ask, and stick to what they say.

And whatever the rules say

Nobody regulates this part, so nobody else will tell you. It is what experienced hunters do without thinking about it.

Identify your target beyond all doubtNot the shape, not the colour, not the sound, not the movement — the animal. Most people killed hunting in New Zealand are shot by another hunter who was sure. If you are talking yourself into it, that is the answer.
Assume you are spending the night outOn every trip, including the two-hour one. Carry a survival bag, a warm layer that works wet, food you do not intend to eat and a head torch with spare batteries. People are late constantly and it only matters when they are not carrying this.
Assume you are getting wetRain, river, or sweat — one of the three, every time. Wool or synthetic next to the skin and never cotton, which stops insulating the moment it is damp and then takes your heat. Keep one dry layer sealed in a bag and do not touch it until you need it.
Carry a knife, and a way to make fireThe knife is for the animal, and for cutting yourself free of something, and for making a shelter. Fire is what turns a bad night into an uncomfortable one. Both live on you, not in the pack you might put down.
Carry a PLBThere is no cell coverage where you are going. A personal locator beacon is the difference between a search and a rescue, they can be hired cheaply, and it is the single most useful thing in the pack. Take it out of the pack lid and put it on you.
If you are unsure about the river, do not cross itDrowning is the other thing that kills hunters here. A river that is up will still be up in the morning, and it comes down faster than you think. Waiting is almost always available; crossing is not always survivable.
Tell someone, and be honest about the timeNot the time you hope to be out — the time after which something has gone wrong. Then mark yourself back, because a search that starts for somebody sitting in the pub is a search that will not be taken seriously next time.

The firearms rules themselves are in the Firearms Safety Code , and Mountain Safety Council teach the bush side properly. Both are worth an evening before your first trip somewhere new.

Thermals, on public conservation land

Three separate rules that get argued about as though they were one. These are conditions of a DOC hunting permit, so they apply to public conservation land — every line in quotation marks below is DOC’s wording, not ours.

Permitted: Hand-held, in daylight, to find animalsHand-held monocular and binocular thermal imaging equipment is permitted for the use of searching and locating wild animals during daylight hours.
Prohibited: Anything mounted on the rifleHunting or discharging a firearm that has thermal imaging, night vision, or spotlight equipment attached.
Prohibited: After dark, at allHaving a loaded firearm or discharging a firearm during the hours of darkness (half an hour after sunset to half an hour before sunrise).
Prohibited: Spotlights and any other artificial lightHunting using spotlights, torches, night vision equipment, vehicle headlights, or any other artificial light source.

It locates. It does not identify.

Read the permitted wording again: searching and locating. A thermal tells you something warm is there, not what it is. DOC’s own line when they announced the change was that hunters “will then still need to identify their target beyond all doubt before taking their shot”, and that has not moved.

Check the date on whatever you were told. Hand-held thermal only became permitted on 1 June 2024. A lot of confident advice still in circulation predates that — and a lot of people heard “thermals are legal now” and took it to mean the one on the rifle.

On private land there is no DOC permit, so these conditions are not what governs. The landowner sets the terms and every firearms and target-identification rule applies exactly as it does anywhere else. We are not going to tell you more than that, because it would be us guessing about your block.

DOC’s hunting permit conditions · the announcement, 31 May 2024 · if DOC has changed this and we have not, tell us.