Where did all the Rabbitts Go?

[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.

[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.

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.

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.

[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.