is the humble bunny in decline

keeperstweed

Well-Known Member
as the title says, i was out this morning with ferrets and shotgun and for 5 hours i shot 6 rabbits.
they seem to be thin on the ground this year and a lot of the burrows had nothing in them.
when out foxing, i have not seen many on the lamp. a good thing for farmers, but not for shooters.
i would be intrested to here what others have to say.
cheers,
mark.
 
Very little on the ground around my area, we still keep ferrets but they have little to no work these days.
Seems to be a trend of fewer and fewer rabbits up here as the years progress
 
I've forgotten what they look like :(
Just got back in from an afternoon walk round, saw one, on the next door farm where I don't have permission.

Neil. :)
 
Not the numbers about that there used to be even after harvest only saw 4-5 cant remember the last time i shot one to be honest
 
So what are peoples theories as to the decline? Raptors? Disease? More foxes?
 
We had a lot in North Wales but nothing like the numbers now. Myself and Kalahari reckon there is a correlation between rise in buzzard and corvid numbers.

ATB,

Scrummy
 
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So what are peoples theories as to the decline? Raptors? Disease? More foxes?

Bad winters followed by wet summers and more bad winters, fields flooded this year and last.
Stick Mixy in with the above and they don't have much chance do they.
Only fox problem round my way is a lack of them, nothing else to eat the rabbits so has to be the weather and mixi.
My permission was teeming with them when I started shooting there, first 3 years were great, made a decent reduction but left a
couple of areas alone as the rabbits were feeding around the lakes, saves me cutting the grass, but even they are gone now :(
Only thing to come from the lack of bunnies is proving to the farmer it never was the rabbits eating the majority of his crops.
I always said it was Moorhens as the missing crops were always round the lakes, 2 of them in particular, I have hit them very hard
this winter, but it's a loosing battle as they just move from other lakes to the best feeding, must have shot over 300 this winter
and there is no visible difference in the numbers showing.

Neil. :)
 
We have virtually no rabbits now. It is down to a disease causing internal haemerraging in the lungs. The rabbits die quietly down the warrens unnoticed.

Nelson
 
I look after several areas, I have noticed a fall a fall in numbers over the past few years, I went out last night with a mate to one area, we only saw about 10 rabbits on the 200 acre's. I have been doing this particular bit of the estate for over 15 years, used to shoot 50 plus a night, now we are lucky to get 10. I did hit it hard in the early days, but I was under pressure to reduce the numbers by the estate, but as I have said, in the past 2 or 3 years they have declined on all of my permissions, still plenty of charlies about though, more than ever in the past couple of years.
 
10 years ago vhd had hit the southern area of england, has it took its toll on the uk population by moving north.
have not seen many mixy rabbits for a few years, they used to be all over the place. this year i have probably seen 4.
could it be down to flooding, did some burrows on high ground which where dry, but nothing in them.
it would be a great shame to see the rabbit eradicate from the uk.
 
We were plagued with them last year but I agree the combination of very wet weather and the cold winter a couple of years ago cannot have done them much good.
 
used to lamp them a lot about 20-30 a night some areas on the estate had high numbers now the same areas have 3-6 at most and some areas have none at all. no mixi in the area and this has happened in the last 2 years .
 
i can go out for a few hours and if im lucky i my only get 5-6, there is as many, or they just out smarting us
 
So, we all know that rabbits are not aquatic, 2012 is taken care of.

So, we all know that rabbit shooters do not conserve their "breeding stock". 2012 was a lean year, see the above.

So, we all know....... welcome to 2013.

Stan ;)
 
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