Rabbits were eating vegetable gardens and farmers' grass, Cross said.
Nobody wants to co-exist on the peninsula with a "plague" of rabbits.
It was the first time the group had seen any organisation make targeted funding available to help a community control rabbits.
The funding would be used to survey peninsula residents, asking about the extent of the rabbit issue, the success of any control methods used and challenges faced.
"To find out what the need is."
From the survey findings, a plan would be created to support those needs, whatever they might be, she said.
The needs might spark future workshops on topics such as control methods, how to source supplies or where to find pest control services.
She hoped if control supplies and services were needed, the coordination of landowners might reduce costs.
A united effort to control the pest would be more effective and easier to manage than people going it alone, she said.
Another reason to control the rabbit population was the charitable trust had also started trapping stoats on the peninsula.
A booming rabbit population made it harder to trap stoats, she said.
"If you were a stoat, why would you go in a trap when you could have a diet of rabbit?"
She and her husband Brendon had been sheep and beef farming on the peninsula for 26 years.
Rabbit numbers had grown steadily on their 200ha Roselle Farm in Portobello.
Methods to reduce rabbit numbers on the all-grass system included intensive drops of poisoned carrots across their farm for the past two winters.
Ravenous rabbits gobbled up the carrots last winter, due to a lack of grass growth from a drought in autumn.
The carrot drops had worked and rabbit numbers were "super low" but fresh rabbit holes showed the pest was returning.
Rabbit fencing surrounds most of the farm.
The group was in a good position to work with the community on rabbit control because of its past engagement with them controlling possums.
Possums had been the target species for the group since it launched 12 years ago.
The possum population had plummeted between the northern point of the peninsula at Taiaroa Head, inland about 10km, to about Portobello.
"We have monitoring devices and traps all over the place there. To see one, or catch one, is a rare thing."
Group staff were working to eradicate possums from the rest of the peninsula, catching about 20 a month, she said.
When possum traps and baits were being laid on properties, lifestyle block owners would repeatedly ask for advice on how to control their rabbit numbers.
Rabbits were destroying native bush on the peninsula, Cross said.
"It's worse than what the possums are doing, they [rabbits] are eating all the undergrowth, the seedlings coming up and ring barking trees."
Councillor and eco fund assessment panel chairman Michael Deaker said during the past four years, a total of $1.19 million had now been distributed from the Eco Fund and other incentives for 101 projects, underpinning the environmental work of 78 organisations.
"It was especially satisfying this year, for the first time, to grant money to communities seeking sustained rabbit management, and more native planting for water quality and to replace wilding pines."
Fund recipients
Other incentive fund recipients for sustained rabbit management:
• Hidden Hills Residents Assc; $48,883, rabbit fencing around Wanaka.
• Friends of Tucker Beach Wildlife Management Reserve; $33,000, for a rabbit management plan around Queenstown.
• Wentworth estate Residents Group; $4050, for rabbit fencing, Gibbston.
Incentive fund for native planting for water quality:
• Otokia Creek and Marsh Habitat Trust; $23,700, for native revegetation, admin, materials and labour at Brighton, south of Dunedin.
• Dunedin Environment Centre Trust; $5000, for native revegetation at Kaikorai Estuary, Dunedin.
• East Otago Catchment Group; $1300, native revegetation at Dunback, Shag Valley.
Incentive fund for native planting following wilding pine removal
• Arrowtown Choppers; $11,706, for native regeneration, planting consumables, Arrowtown.
• Cape Wanbrow; $2500, for native regeneration of titi/muttonbird habitat, Oamaru.
• Quail Rise Residents Group; $1000, site preparation for native regeneration, Queenstown.
• Mokihi Reforestation Trust; $7919, soil preparation materials for native regeneration, Bannockburn.
Eco Fund recipients:
• Southern Lakes Sanctuary; $26,125, Mohua/yellowhead for translocation, helicopters and bait stations, Queenstown Lakes area.
• Haehaeata Natural Heritage Charitable Trust; $38,124, for community native plant nursery and wages, in Clyde.
• Yellow-eyed Penguin Trust; $17,091, for native revegetation of yellow-eyed penguin habitat, at Long Point in the Catlins.
• Save The Otago Peninsula Inc; $17,926, for fencing significant native forest remnant, education on native plantings in workshops and planting days, around Harbour Cone, on Otago Peninsula.
• Wakatipu Reforestation Trust; $45,733, environmental education in the Queenstown Lakes area.
• Friends of Bullock Creek Inc; $12,000, for weed control/water quality in Wanaka.
• Aroha Kaikorai Valley Trust; $19,266, for predator trap network; plans and traps in Kaikorai Valley, Dunedin.
• Quarantine Island Kamau Taurua Community (Inc); $18,002, for native revegetation, weed and predator control, a co-ordinator and volunteer expenses, at Quarantine Island in Otago harbour.
• Forest & Bird, Dunedin branch; $16,261, predator control to protect long-tailed bat roost sites, in the Tahakopa Valley, Catlins.
• Mana Tahuna; $15,000, for predator trap lines around Lake Hayes.
• Te Kakano Aotearoa Trust; $4000 for native revegetation on the Upper Clutha.
• Hokonui Runanga operating as Hokonui Runanga Floriculture Ltd; $38,413, for possum control in native forests around Tautuku.
• Forest & Bird, Waitaki Branch; $3000, for community native plant sourcing and nursery, in Oamaru.
• Aspiring Biodiversity Trust; $19,098 for a predator trap network around Mt Aspiring National Park.
