Bunny hurl idea chucked

A children's rabbit-throwing contest in a remote rural community has been cancelled after concerns were raised by the SPCA.

The competition was to be part of next Saturday's annual pig hunt in Waiau, about 120km north of Christchurch.

Youngsters under 14 were to toss the carcasses of rabbits they had killed while hunting with their parents.

Pig hunt president Jo Moriarty said on Wednesday Waiau was a rural, hunting town and no one was worried about their children throwing dead animals.

But the following day she confirmed the event would not go ahead after being told of the SPCA's concerns.

"I have spoken to the other members of the committee and we have decided not to go ahead with it. The publicity will not be good for our community.

"We will be doing something else for the children, probably a beanbag-throwing competition."

SPCA national chief executive Robyn Kippenberger said she had no problem with people hunting and shooting rabbits - providing it was done humanely.

She said the contest was a "desecration" that could cause children to think animal cruelty was acceptable. "We live in an extraordinarily violent society that doesn't seem to care about life or the quality of it in many instances.

"This is something that encourages children to think of dead animals as fun. Rabbits are pests; killing them is not fun, it's a necessity.

"Everyone deserves respect in life and death. If someone threw your grandmother after she died you wouldn't like it."

The pig hunt has been running since 2002 as a fundraiser for a local horse trial and will go ahead as planned.

Although the rabbit-throwing contest was held last year without complaint, Moriarty said she could see where the SPCA was coming from.

"I can understand why someone would think that it would not be good for children. But pig-hunting competitions go on in communities all over New Zealand."

Rabbits are one of New Zealand's biggest pests. Introduced in the 1880s to provide game for sportsmen and remind settlers of home, they soon reached plague proportions, stripping vegetation and causing erosion.

In 1938 the Government set up district boards to reduce the population but by the 1980s they were gone, leaving farmers to fend for themselves.

The Government stepped in again the following decade, introducing two diseases - first myxomatosis, then rabbit calicivirus disease - but the feral rabbit population now numbers about 30 million.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, rabbits cause an estimated $22 million damage to the economy each year in control costs and lost production.