How Bega Valley shire plans to keep the rabbits out

With 30 years of groundskeeper experience at the school, Mr Cooper was concerned about swelling numbers destroying the children's veggie gardens.

He had also noticed damage to plants outside of the school along the median strip on the main street.

He said he contacted council over two months ago about the issue and received a reply six weeks after his initial contact.

Council said it was currently investigating the issue and will be reporting back to Mr Cooper in coming weeks about its findings and subsequent actions.

"Due to the recent good conditions, there's been an increase in rabbit populations in the Bega Valley," said Local Land Services senior biosecurity officer Dan Biddulph.

Mr Biddulph said high rainfall over summer had led to an increase of feed for rabbits, meaning that even usual baiting methods with carrots have been somewhat unsuccessful.

Several control techniques were outlined for land managers.

"The first one is calicivirus and there has been several releases of the virus in recent months, so that should be in amongst the population of rabbits as we speak."

There have been a number of releases over the last 15 years of different strains of the virus, with the most recent being the K2 strain, which has been released a couple of times in the last month.

"The next method is warren ripping which destroys their burrows and then poisoning or shooting," said Mr Biddulph.

"I always recommend exclusion fences around high value assets like veggie gardens."

Another recommendation he gave to residents was to keep yards free of debris to avoid providing harbour.

"There is also an app called FeralScan which can be used to identify all pest species. It will also help us to better know where pest species are in the landscape."