“Watch out for potholes!” cried Kim Monroe thumping the top of the cabin of the Land-Rover with one hand to catch the driver’s attention.

“You watch out for them!” shouted back Don Blythe.   “You’re the one working the spotlight.   If you don’t pick up the potholes, how am I supposed to see them in the dark!”

“Have a care!” warned Don’s brother, Mark.   “He’s supposed to be lighting up rabbits for us to shoot, not the forest in front of the car.   That’s what you’ve got headlights for!”

Despite their protests, however, the three men were pitched about in the back of the rickety old Land-Rover (from which the canvas top had been removed) as it rattled through the forest between Harpertown and Perry Township late that January night.

The summer of 1985-86 had seen plague-like increases in the populations of the rabbits, foxes, and other imported species for which Australia has no natural predators.   With the banning of myxomatosis and other chemical poisons that had once been widely used against imported pests, Victorian farmers had been forced to resort to the very time consuming and less effective method of spotlight shooting.   (More effective than daylight shooting, since by day the grey fur of a rabbit, or red of a fox makes it invisible among the tall shrubs and long native grasses.   At night, however, the eyes of the pest shine against the beam of the spotlight giving its location away, allowing the farmer to shoot the creature without even seeing it.)

“Slow down a bit at least!” insisted the fourth man, Jason Melville as he took a shot at a pair of sparkling eyes and fired well wide of the target.

“Yes, for God’s sake!   We’re out here to shoot the buggers, not frighten them to death!” protested Kim, struggling to control the floodlight mounted on top of the cabin of the Land-Rover.

“All right, all right,” agreed Don reluctantly.   He slowed the Rover enough to allow the two shooters to get off some shots at the gleaming fox- or rabbit-eyes highlighted in the spotlight beam.

“Got one!” shouted Mark Blythe with satisfaction as a small, furry carcase flew away into the long grass after he had fired.