Happy Ending is supporting rabbit suppression
on Terawhiti to recover a habitat
for kiwi.
4500 ha on the south-west of our capital city is now home to over 250 kiwi and no longer home to around 200 rabbits, every month. By removing rabbits and hares, the habitat for kiwi is less able to hold stoats and ferrets.
Managing pests on the station has always been a team effort with neighbours and shepherds. When the numbers increased, the opportunity to try a new way was welcomed. The station supports with freezers and access while Happy Ending handles compliance, hunters and shipping. Free.
Scheduling handledRight on the outskirts of Wellington, there are plenty of keen hunters to fill the calendar. Once onboarded, hunters can align work and family with the chance to top up the bank by doing what they love.
HarvestConsignments arrive with all the paperwork — fully traceable back to the paddock, MPI-compliant documents, and ready to become pet food. Shipped boxed and frozen, by the pallet, on cold transport direct to the processor.
Traceable to sourceA few steps, a few good people, and a fair bit of care. Here’s how it works, from your first enquiry to putting good meat to use and helping the land recover.
A landholder registers a property, lists the problem species and the times that suit. Tell your neighbours and invite them; it’ll increase the area of your land we can harvest from. Tell us what has been done in terms of poison, and we’ll arrange the best hunters.
We confirm if we can harvest and prepare the toxin-free declarations from your information. We’ll share nearby hunter profiles; or, if you know someone who could be a Happy Ending harvester, we’ll connect you both so they can start soon.
The chosen hunters work to the terms; shots are geotagged and logged for traceability. The animals are collected, chilled or frozen and prepared for a processor to create food for humans or pets. Compliance dockets stay with the animals.
Because we have a digital record of the harvest, a bundle of documents travels with the animals to an MPI-approved processor. Landholders get a record of what was collected and where. Hunters get paid per kg for what they gathered.
With the pests removed, productivity can increase or nature can bounce back. We’ll keep the pressure on, though: consistency is key. We can create a record of native species to measure the improvement over time, or for biodiversity credits.
The questions we hear most.
Yes. Harvesting introduced species for petfood is permitted under MPI rules. Happy Ending prepares the declarations and enforces the requirements — vetting, withholding periods and documentation — on every harvest.
Our role is the fastest, cleanest, most humane conclusion possible. Hunters are tested on animal welfare and harvest standards, and animals must be alive and healthy at the time of harvest to qualify.
Poison history is captured when a property is listed. The system makes sure no animal exposed to toxins can be harvested. Most animals are taken from active farmland — the same paddocks where most human food is raised.
Listing is free for landholders. Happy Ending arranges processor collection and pays hunters for each kg of protein harvested. The pet food supply chain funds the system.
List your land in minutes. We handle compliance, match vetted hunters, and give you a live view of every visit and harvest.