Where did all the Rabbitts Go?

[WickedGoodOutdoors]

Only a few years ago I recall hundreds of Cottentail Rabbitts hopping all around my yard.

You could hunt them just about anywhere with a .22 or bb gun without even trying.

Now: I have not seen a Rabbitt in the last 5 years.

Where did they Go?

Im thinnking of starting a Home for wayward Easter Bunnies in my yard and letting them all breed in the Black Raspberry & BlueBerry Bushs. I have lots of Great Habitat but no rabbitts.

Is this really happening?

Planet could be 'unrecognizable' by 2050, experts say


http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110220/ts_afp/scienceuspopulationfood



http://www.cksinfo.com/clipart/animals/rabbits/rabbits-2.png

[Thumbcocker]

Coyotes and cats

[reloader28]

We normally have lots around here too. But this year I've only shot a few.
They seem to die out about every 7 years from disease when they get too thick. This is about the 7th year. Now they should keep growing and growing in numbers again for a few years.

Thats what happens around here anyways.

[blaster]

Coyotes, by this time of year the population is usually getting pretty low due to depredation and plain old harsh weather mortality.

[dragonrider]

I've seen exactly one bunny track through my yard this year. Usually more than that.

[10 ga]

If you are anywhere close to a housing developement, town or other residential area etc... study has revealed the major prodator on all small native wildlife is FREE ROAMING HOUSE CATS! And in VA house cats are defined as "companion" animals and are protected. It is also illegal to abandon domestic animals so if I catch any while doing ADC work they go to the "animal control" officer. Lotsa luck on finding homes for those wild cats. And if one happens to come in while I'm predator calling, well..... LOL! Hope you can get some rabbits back. 10 ga

[1Shirt]

Kind of agree with Reloader 28 regarding cycles of cotten tails. Remember one year in Kansas when you would see 20-30 a day, and no problem to limit. The following year you were lucky to see one or two. Then it startet to build up again before I got transfered. 7 years may be the cycle.
1Shirt!:coffee:

[mold maker]

Two years ago the PD range was a quagmire of rabbitt droppings. There are none visible now. I kinda miss seeing Thumper in my yard when I return after dark.

[Jack Stanley]

Around here the coyotes seem to keep things under control . Feral cats seem to keep disappearing for some reason ... except for this one ol' brown and black striped tiger with white feet and belly . Ever' time ah' sees it a mouse is a dyin' .


Bless it's little furry heart !! , Jack :bigsmyl2:

[Beerd]

natural boom and bust cycle.
same thing happens with snowshoes.
..

[dk17hmr]

.......

You could hunt them just about anywhere with a .22 or bb gun without even trying.

Now: I have not seen a Rabbitt in the last 5 years.

Where did they Go............

They all died a slow painful death from infection after getting shot with a bb gun.


Cycles....its down here I havent even shot 1 this winter, mainly because I havent found any.

[JeffinNZ]

They moved to New Zealand. My brother dropped nearly 400 the other week spotlighting on evening!

[Linstrum]

I have watched the rabbit and jack rabbit populations cycle up and down for about 55 years in Southern California and New Mexico. Some years I couldn't drive to town without hitting at least one cottontail and other years I'd go weeks without seeing any. There are several diseases that naturally wipe out rabbit populations and folks who raise rabbits are sometimes affected when their domestic rabbits get the diseases and it kills them off, too. Tularemia is one disease that also affects people. Like has been said already, coyotes are also another one that keeps rabbit populations low, as are bobcats, mountain lions, hawks and eagles, owls, and probably weasels and minks.

Right now in Southern New Mexico where I live there is a shortage of coyotes because of parvovirus killing them off and last summer we were overrun by cottontails, jack rabbits, ground squirrels. I'll tell you what really hurts is while riding a motorcycle to have a jack rabbit jump out in front of you and having the stupid thing run right into your leg! I had that happen and I'm lucky I was only going about 15 mph, otherwise it might have done some damage, those jacks are BIG!

We used to have a lot of jack rabbits in Ventura County, California, but they suddenly disappeared about 35 years ago and have not made a comeback yet for some reason, they are a victim of a European hare virus that the North American jack rabbits, which aren't rabbits and are actually hares, lack immunity to.

So most places have a wide fluctuation of cottontails along with other wildlife from one year to the next, and this is usually just pretty natural.


rl959

[Boz330]

They moved to New Zealand. My brother dropped nearly 400 the other week spotlighting on evening!

You definitely have more than your fair share, but I wish we had a few more around us. It is easier to find deer than rabbits, but I sure like eating both.

Bob

[Linstrum]

Hey, JeffinNZ, are the rabbits you have there the same kind that were imported from England and now plague Australia, too?


rl960

[Smoke-um if you got-um]

Rabbit population around here cycles from feast to famine. However, Red-Tail Hawks and Cats have been hitting them pretty hard in the past 4-5 yrs making it a bit difficult to gauge where the cycle is.

Mike

[camaro1st]

here there are so many hawks that the rabbits are nocturnal. when i was growing up, dad and i could get so many that we could eat all winter. that was when you hardly saw a hawk, now you can see a hawk on top of every other electric pole and hardly see a rabbit. hear cat taste like chicken!!

[quilbilly]

Out here in our western deserts our jackrabbits and cottontails are in a 7-10 year cycle. The cycle is caused by a disease called tularemia which is almost 100% fatal. It is passed by close contact between rabbits when they are overpopulated. For a couple years the rabbits are everywhere then suddenly they are almost gone. Instead of seeing 10 per hour you might see one or two per day of walking. The population stays low for 5-6 years then explodes again. My favorite coyote hunting area in Northern Nevada is only now recovering after the crash occurred six years ago.
In the western deserts (Cal., Nevada, Oregon, etc) the coyotes and bobcats don't cause the crashes but reliably suffer a population crash a year after the rabbit crash. Scientists call this a classic predator/prey relationship.
I have seen this rabbit plague up close. If you have tularemia in your area and you see a rabbit acting strangely, don't touch it. Shoot it to put it out of its misery but don't go near it. This disease can be passed to people and can be fatal if not treated!
Be patient, your rabbits will be back in a couple years.

[9.3X62AL]

Full agreement with Linstrum and Quilbilly regarding the jacks and cottontails out West. It seems to be cyclic and somewhat regionalized. I haven't had a cottontail as table fare in a long time, owing to fear of tularemia. I won't shoot them or handle them. Owing to their open-season/no-limit status, I do shoot jacks--but don't handle them, either. Many are tick-infested and otherwise kinda gnarly. They do make fine coyote bait, though. :)

[Hickory]

About 25 years ago in Indiana DNR magazine, they had an article on building rabbit nesting boxes.

Measurements were 12”x12”x24” with the bottom open and at each end attach a 4” plastic drain pipe no longer than 18”.

They can be put under brush piles or on the side of hills or ditches.
I put 3 on my property and before 2 years were up I had to dig them up, because the rabbits were eating everything.

[quilbilly]

I have no problem eating cottontails or even jackrabbits in the late spring but I always watch for unusual behavior among the animals if the hare or rabbit population is high. It is also always a good idea to dress your rabbits using latex gloves and check the liver for problem signs (spots).
All this is making me hungry for a cottontail dinner before the season closes in the rainy part of the Northwest. Time to get busy.[smilie=s:

[Linstrum]

Back in the mid-1970s I used to drive the water truck to deliver water to a big sheep operation close to where I farmed in Southern California. The shepherds were both Basque and Mexican and any of them could get you a rabbit for lunch with not much more than their bare hands! The shepherds had a lot of time to practice throwing rocks all day long, and almost every evening when I saw the guys bring the sheep back to camp just before sundown they would have three or four rabbits hanging off their belts for their dinner that night. I had more than a few cottontail rabbit dinners with them since these guys got lonely and loved company. A few of the Basque used sling shots to throw a rock, and I don't mean a rubber tubing wrist rocket type, a real Biblical David and Goliath sort of sling shot made with rope and canvas to hurl a big rock, usually used to deter coyotes that were hazing the sheep. They didn't use a knife to dress the rabbits, they'd just twist off the paws, pull a tab of skin loose at the neck and "un-zip" the belly to get the lites and guts out, being careful of the gall and urine bladders and vent to prevent contamination. They also checked them out for the huge warble maggots that live under the skin, those things just make me shudder! But like quilbilly and 9.3x62AL have already mentioned, rabbits, jacks, along with most other kinds of wildlife, can be supreme disease carriers from bubonic plague fleas, Lyme disease ticks, to tularemia and rabies, many of which can be fatal, especially bubonic plague, tularemia and rabies. But I had my eyes opened about how well we can do without modern tools if we have to.


rl963

[Suo Gan]

I have watched the rabbit and jack rabbit populations cycle up and down for about 55 years in Southern California and New Mexico. Some years I couldn't drive to town without hitting at least one cottontail and other years I'd go weeks without seeing any. There are several diseases that naturally wipe out rabbit populations and folks who raise rabbits are sometimes affected when their domestic rabbits get the diseases and it kills them off, too. Tularemia is one disease that also affects people. Like has been said already, coyotes are also another one that keeps rabbit populations low, as are bobcats, mountain lions, hawks and eagles, owls, and probably weasels and minks.

Right now in Southern New Mexico where I live there is a shortage of coyotes because of parvovirus killing them off and last summer we were overrun by cottontails, jack rabbits, ground squirrels. I'll tell you what really hurts is while riding a motorcycle to have a jack rabbit jump out in front of you and having the stupid thing run right into your leg! I had that happen and I'm lucky I was only going about 15 mph, otherwise it might have done some damage, those jacks are BIG!

We used to have a lot of jack rabbits in Ventura County, California, but they suddenly disappeared about 35 years ago and have not made a comeback yet for some reason, they are a victim of a European hare virus that the North American jack rabbits, which aren't rabbits and are actually hares, lack immunity to.

So most places have a wide fluctuation of cottontails along with other wildlife from one year to the next, and this is usually just pretty natural.


rl959

Linstrum, The same thing has happened here with the hares, there used to be roundups of several hundred thousand a few times each year, now you can go a week or two without seeing one jack rabbit. As to cottontails, they have extreme population cycles that repeat every few years. And about the plague, many ground squirrels carry it.

[Shooter]

Rabbits are at a all time low around here. The federal protection of hawks has a lot to do with it.

A doctor I know says he believes rabbits may suffer from the same fescue fungus that causes cattle to abort their calves.

[Von Gruff]

I have a friend flying in in a few days and we are going to spend a couple of days chasing rabbits up country a bit where the numbers are very high.Looks like the weather is going to play ball for us as well.

Von Gruff.

[Bad Water Bill]

We had a PET cat residing across the street. The owners thought it was cute the way it carried dead baby rabbits, robbins, cardinals etc home and left them at the back door. No SSS in the city limits so the air rifle came out. POP construction bag, garbage can and byby kitty cat.

If you own a cat the same rules apply to cats as dogs. Keep them under your control or. :violin:

No I do not HATE cats but when I see one PET cat hunting, wiping out 4 cardinal, ? robbin, Blue jay and countless rabbit nests while being fed at home something got done.

[firefly1957]

I have rabbits here in Michigan around the house but The coyotes keep away as I have been shooting them and the feral cats which are not protected yet. Last fall coyotes were quite active and I saw rabbits in the daytime often more than at night. now they are out day and night when snow was deep I saw few tracks but after melt off I am seeing rabbits again. I have found fur and feathers in yard it looks like a hawk or owl has been getting rabbits and a possum got at least one partridge. I will be setting trap for possum it is times like this I miss my dog most though small he was quick to kill those marsupial rats. ( after he got done with them they were often cross eyed but never cute like the Euroweenies think)

[firefly1957]

Bad Bill I have used the road to obscure my participation in a problem pets demise after going around the block a couple times at night the bullet hole is well hidden and I am not suspected.

[Beagler]

They got real thin here in my corner of PA my beagle hounds and I are getting board. It doesn't help that I have lost over half of my private hunting areas to developers and Farmers will not let me hunt or just even run the dogs because other people where doing stupid stuff on there prop. and now they fear of getting sued if something would happen on the prop.

After a snow all I see are cat, fox, and coyote tracks anymore. They do a lot of regulated pheasant hunting (pay per bird) in my area. so all the ones that get away get wacked by the predators. Lots of food = lots of predators. So after x-mas I critter hunt.

[Shooter]

We had a PET cat residing across the street. The owners thought it was cute the way it carried dead baby rabbits, robbins, cardinals etc home and left them at the back door. No SSS in the city limits so the air rifle came out. POP construction bag, garbage can and byby kitty cat.

If you own a cat the same rules apply to cats as dogs. Keep them under your control or. :violin:

No I do not HATE cats but when I see one PET cat hunting, wiping out 4 cardinal, ? robbin, Blue jay and countless rabbit nests while being fed at home something got done.

That will get you a felony conviction in Virginia; lost of gun rights.:sad:

[thegatman]

They moved to New Zealand. My brother dropped nearly 400 the other week spotlighting on evening!

Hope you and yours are safe in that "Shakin Town"

[firefly1957]

Shooter I wonder how many states protect cats I know they are not here unless they are owned but that is another can of worms as the owners are responsible for letting them run and doing damage. I had a cat lady next door years ago and she asked me if I was killing her cats, I was not and told her so. My wife had been complaining that someone was on our roof at night to which I said yea right do you know how steep it is anyone would get killed trying it. Then one Saturday night when I was home from second shift someone walked across our roof and my wife says and that is the other sound I keep hearing. I went out side and was shocked at the size of the great horned owl eating a cat on my roof!!! The sound was his hoots muffled but audible. I let the neighbor know what was going on and showed her the fur on the dormer section of my roof. When she moved out I trapped a couple dozen very wild cats and animal control told me not to bring in any that were viscous as they did not want them.

[Bad Water Bill]

SHOOTER That will get you a felony conviction in Virginia; lost of gun rights.

Sorry folks the last time I saw your cat was a the other day as he destroyed the mourning dove nest in my back yard and headed toward your house with one of the parents in his mouth.

By the way how long has he been out cruising this time? Well either he will return home by himself or someone will take him in, see his collar and village license tag and you should get a call in a day or so. O I am sorry you could not afford a collar, vet tag or village license tag. I sure hope he was not hit by a car a block or 2 away where someone did not know where he lived,

(The garbage bag went in one of the village dumpsters the same day he went A W O L ) .

By the time people realize their PET is missing a week or more will have gone by and the bag is in a LANDFILL miles away.

[Shooter]

The PETA crowd gets these laws ram-rodded through the legislature.

Felony to kill a comapanion animal, can't sell horses for meat.

Meanwhile, they charge so much to adopt a pet from a shelter that one might as well buy one from a pet store. All the while crying and begging for your money

[Bad Water Bill]

When my mom wanted a new dog we went to the shelter. It was so crowded dogs were kept in cages in the aisles. Anyhow mom found a nice one and then the fun started. No you are to old to have a dog. O your daughter lives with you OK. The total bill will be $150.00 + you sign here obliging that you will have her spayed, rabies etc shots chip installed at X vets.

Well mom lived in another county and she had a good vet of many years. Mam this dog has been spayed a couple years ago, see the old surgical scar, and a chip is right here. Lets see what we can find out about shots. A couple minutes on the puter and all shots were current. Hmmm Could the original vet and shelter been working together?

[jlchucker]

I live in northern VT, on the western-central side. Some 15 years ago guys around here hunted rabbits on occasion, as did I. I haven't seen a rabbit in or near the woods for a good 10 years. Not even tracks in the winter. House cats didn't eradicate them--folks around here have always had those, and farms had, and still do, have a lot of them. Nor did birds of prey--hawks and such have always been around. What's new over this time span is Coyotes. 20 years ago they were rare. Nowadays you can see them pass through back pastures, and in the spring you can hear them howling in the middle of the night. Lately, we've had some legislative tree-hugging *******es thinking it would be a good idea to re-introduce wolves to the state, but that hasn't happened yet. I doubt if that would be much good for turkeys or deer. Rabbits no longer seem to exist.

[northmn]

Companion animals and feral cats are two different critters. Cities get a lot of ferals and I knew a police chief who cleaned them out a little bit. Almost any town has a "cat lady" that lieks to shelter 40-50 cats. I some cases they are in violation of health department rules. My wife has three pets but they are mostly indoor cats. So far I have not seen any indication that they like anything but mice and chipmunks. If someone thinks chipmunks should be protected they can have all of those in my area. I ahe not seen a snowshoe rabbit tracke on my place for many years, but a lot of coyote tracks.

DP

[SethD]

Even FERAL cats of all things are now explicitly protected here in texas. It irritated me to no end when they pushed that through five or six years ago now. That sort of silly law is a better fit for states on the commie coasts then the state of texas.

[cutlass1972]

I own an 18 acre piece of land, about 75% densely wooded, a 1/2 acre spring fed pond. I have LOTS of the biggest fox squirrels you have ever seen, lots of deer, turkeys, dove, etc...

The only rabbits I EVER see are little baby ones hanging out of my neighbors cats mouth around spring time, on MY property. I see it quite frequently at that.

If it where feral it would be gone, I cannot bring myself to kill my neighbors kids "pet" cat.

[NHlever]

I've tried to manage my little plot of land for rabbits, and other critters since I like to have them around. I built brush piles, and actually had the population on the rise from nothing it seemed to having some tracks around, and occassional sightings. One day I went for a walk out there, and there were red spots everywhere.......... coyotes had roamed through, and cleaned them out in a day. We seldom see small game anymore around here, and I find that sad. To go out on snowshoes for several hours, and not see a track, or even a red squirrel is bothersome. We do have turkeys, and a few deer so the coyotes don't go hungry.

[reloader28]

I think I'd be doing me some coyote hunting.

[NHlever]

Last time I tried calling coyotes behind my home, I woke every dog in a 5 mile radius I think. It was really pretty funny! :D Since the cover is dense around here, I have switched to a squeaker call, but no luck yet. Chemo treatments have kept me out of the woods this winter pretty much.

[Von Gruff]

Last time I tried calling coyotes behind my home, I woke every dog in a 5 mile radius I think. It was really pretty funny! :D .

That bought a smile to my memory. When I started work in the high country as a boy out of school I remember coming back to the property late one night ( been out on the town) and howled at the full moon before retiring for the night. This was a sheep property and there were five sheep property homesteads in that part of the valley with a combined total of nearly 40 dogs who woke doge further down the valley. I was not the most popular young feller next morning ( or for some time afterwards as they went for the rest of the night...that I slept through for some reason or other)

Von Gruff.

[Linstrum]

I used to howl with the neighbor dogs when I was about 11 or 12, I'd come home at about 9PM from cotillion on Saturday night all enthused from dancing with the young ladies and if the dogs were barking at the next ranch up the valley I'd bark and bay with them for a minute before going in the house. I have a theory that dogs howl all across the US, it starts with one dog in Maine and before the night is over it has progressed all the way to Washington and Oregon. Then the next night it starts in Washington and makes its way all the way back to Maine. Just one kid could start it, too, with a hoot and howl at the moon!



rl992

[10x]

Rabbits used to be on a 7 to ten year cycle. The population is just starting to rise in N. Alberta.
At the peak of the cycle it is not unusual to see rabbits every fifteen to twenty yards along the side of the roads where ever there is aspen. Then you may not find a rabbit track for five or six years.

[Marine Sgt 2111]

I have 20 acres and lots more flat farm land around. We have turkeys, fox, deer, squirrels, crows and ....yotes ...but few if any rabbits. Oh and one wild pig...but someone must have got him because he hasn't been seen in a while.

[Von Gruff]

That is one of the reasons that the rabbit numbers in NZ have been so high. There dosent seem to be a cyclical rise and fall, it just keeps climbing. The reason of course is no predators and the virus that was ilegally imported a few years to deal to them has almost no effect now. The number were at plague proportions in tha late 20,s and caused a number of farmers to walk off thier land as it was no longer an economic return from the land. My grandfather was one such farmer. They organised enormous drives and killed hundreds of thousands of them and set up rabbit boards to control them with great sucess until they amalgimated the boards then disbanded them arguing that the farmers were responsible for thier own land. Of course many of them couldn't afford the huge sums needed for either paying permanent shooters and they let the numbers get away again untill tiday they are at disasterous numbers in many places again. With 5 rabbits eating as much as one sheep a few thousand on a property can severly limit the returns. Some is good for hunting but many is bad for the farmer.

Von Gruff.

[Von Gruff]

http://cuisine.david-kyriakidis.be/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/23.jpg[/IMG]



Now that looks good and with this to start from too.

http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv39/VonGruff/017-1.jpg

There is a small shoot and recovery plant but for anything comercial they have to be headshot and there is so many restrictions on dressing and keeping that it is not viable except for the high end resturant tables.

Has been held up as an employment and sale idea a few times but the "do gooders" with all thier health and safety rules and restrictions means it could never work in our increasingly pc culture. In the early days there were rabbit men in thier spring carts or wagonettes that would be like the milkman, the vege seller and do the rounds of the town streets with carcasses for sale. People worked and had an income while the meat made a welcome and tasty change for the table of most households.

Von Gruff.

[Shooter]

The food looks great!
What I miss is a good double gun in the crook of my arm, and yodleing beagles.

[1Shirt]

Yodeling beagles and a double over the arm is one of those sights that makes a great calander picture. Brings back a lot of good memories. One of them was when I was hunting rabbits with a friend who was shooting a Browning auto. This was in Ka. on a year when there seemed to be an over abundance of rabbits.

He had missed a couple of shots and I had been ragging him about them. I busted a rabbit and it crossed out and in front of my friend. He shot 3 times fairly rapidly, and I yelled that he should have stopped on the second shot. He yelled back and asked me if I wanted to come over and pick up his 3 dead rabbits. Which I did! Didn't kid him no more that day. And that was 40 years ago.
1Shirt!:coffee:

[Shooter]

A man that would use an auto-loader on rabbits, would give liquior to the preacher's daughter. :-)

[bowfin]

I have seen this happen on several pieces of land, and it is almost invariably cats, either feral or domestic. They will wipe out whole nests of rabbits, going back and getting the bunnies one by one.

I shoot every one I see out by the cabin, but I really need to set traps as well. The only problem is the two adjacent farms have no control over their "farm cats", which become "feral cats" as soon as they cross the fenceline and are treed by my hound.