Sadly, it seems our local Cooper Hawk has moved on or met with an early demise. This leaves me with some daily “First Shots” at new bunny wabbits, as Elmer Fudd used to say. An especially prosperous birthing season for the herbivorous nuisances. But, I don't like blunting bunnies.

I hope the Coop returns…

Keep it legal if ya can.

A little chicken wire keeps them out of my veggies easy enough.

That’s a different take, than mine for sure. I’d rather have a hundred bunnies than one hawk. I’m enjoying the abundance of wabbits this season, so far.

What particular problems are the bunnies causing you? Just curious.

I’d be on board with plenty of bunnies to hunt, but I gotta say - I love watching raptors work!

The more bunnies the better as far as I'm concerned.

Anyone read Watership Down, read it back in the 70s about wabbits.

Watch several gents with their raptors hunting wabbits several winters ago, interesting.

The bunnies are everywhere this year. They will soon turn to rabbits. We, my wife actually, has a good deal of seasonal foliage that the rabbits will destroy. Then there are various locations with food growing for us. As we have dogs that use gates in fencing and are allowed access to most everywhere that is fenced, there become breaches in the defense. More rabbits than normal this year. It may be that the Coop has a full belly. I am hopeful that some fox come by at night, but not hopeful about wild Puma and coyotes. Abundance of prey attracting an abundance of predators.

Too bad the bunnies cannot be trained like the deer. The deer walk around our usable land due to past experience with non penetrating projectiles.

Back to raptors at work, the wife puts out bird feeders during the Winter months. Even though the feeders are not completely in the open, the Coop frequently snags a dove. If I see it, I run the Coop off if he decides to pluck and dismember on the spot so he doesn’t leave a mess.

A red fox chased a rabbit through my yard the other day. My wife was cheering for the rabbit who won the race after it cut around the garage.

Lots of bunnies now, come hunting season they are endangered species. Too many predators in the air and on the ground, many are Federally protected. Why ? I will never know.

Almost got a wabbit yesterday evening. Was out back about to shoot a few arrows at my target when one came bouncing by and stopped at 15 yards. All I had to do was to take a step forward and I had a shot but before I could, the Shop Inspector came busting around the house and ran it off. He's still just a pup and lost it in a minute or so. They did a number on the garden last year and that is where it was headed. I was hoping the gray fox would keep them in check. I caught and released both the male and the female twice this year in the live trap. The red tails patrol the area pretty good, they have a nest close by.

I got a bunch of rabbits in my yard. My yard is the safe zone. Outside my yard isn't.

Here is why…

https://web.stanford.edu/group/stanfordbirds/text/essays/Conservation_of_Raptors.ht ml

I have a Cooper’s hawk during our winter months. Never bothered the desert cottontails. Have been fortunate enough to witness it taking out a morning done in midair twice. My rabbits disappeared 5 years ago as I’ve had two baby great horned owls every every year starting about 1st of May. I miss my bunnies as the young were a joy to watch.

RonL

I saw a LOT of bunnies in VA this afternoon - Sky Meadow SPmseems pretty well loaded.

I knew I guy that had a tatoo Of Elmer Fudd holding onto a club on his butt cheek and the caption said come out of that hole you wacky wabbit !

Shooting Rabbits out of season?????

When I was young, we had LOTS of Rabbits. Over the past 25yrs. they were on a steady decline due to the huge number of Coyotes that have since moved in. We stopped hunting them and thankfully in the past several years, their numbers have increased a great deal. In the summer time driving through the path in one of our cornfields, we'd typically see 10+ just sitting in the 4-wheeler trail. It's a welcoming sight!!!!

I still see very few rabbits except in very protected places. In my area, our agriculture takes place primarily under shade cloth (very protected area). This does not allow raptors in, but wait until the rabbit leaves its "shelter" and wham. I have to admit I see a few more than in the past, but by no means are we overwhelmed by them.

Raptors are protected because if they weren't people would wipe them out.

There really is nothing like any predator on the hunt and the prey trying to evade them. Makes even the most gifted human athletes look pretty ordinary.

Wildlife depredation regulations followed accordingly.

Good news is that predators seem to be stepping up to the abundance.

Damn straight on both, Pat.

Rabbits have been very scarce around here for years and groundhogs have been steadily declining

Though seen 3 covies of bobwhites which had disappeared for a long time

Didn't see any rabbits when out hunting for them this past season ending in February but have them around the house. Yesterday at dusk there were three in the front yard up near the road so I went over to push them back toward safer ground. One didn't move and had a different posture lying close to the ground rather than erect. When it did finally run off I saw it was sitting on a nest in the middle of the yard. Pulling away the dried grass there was a hole with the young ones. I mowed on Friday so know it wasn't there then.

A quick Google showed the mother comes back to the nest at dawn and dusk to nurse but stays away the rest of the day to keep it hidden from predators. To help protect them when in an open area it was recommended to cover the nest with a wheelbarrow, lawnmower or crate leaving a gap for entry. The bunnies are helpless for the first 7 to 10 days, will venture out of the nest at about two weeks, and are on their own at four weeks.

I also saw a tiny one that just went on it's own. There are thick bushy areas around my yard and adjacent properties so seems odd the spot it picked to make the nest. The rabbit was back and went under the crate this morning so appears all is well for now.

We have rabbits, cotton tail and jack, everywhere. 6 of them in neighbors yard yesterday. Our GSD is so used to them she doesn’t even get up to chase them anymore. The yotes come around but don’t seem to make a dent in the population. Quail the same way, not uncommon to see a mom quail with 8-10 young running behind her. Both species have learned to eat Oranges and every other house has at least one tree.

I have been razzed about it, but a jackrabbit was a cheap dinner when I was in school up at Laramie…

Jump-shooting them with a bow sounds like BIG fun!

I build brush piles all around my 40 acre place for the cottontails and I Plant a big enough garden that there's plenty for us after they get their share. We have a 6 acre Orchard and the rest into hay with a creek cutting across the property so lots of habitat. My sons beagle had to be treated for heartworms and had to take a break from hunting last year. She came through it and should be good to go come fall to run some rabbits for us. Bows only and rabbit must be moving when shot at Keeps the population high as well as the fun for us.

Good habitat is what insures a rabbit's success versus predators. Places that maintain open areas with brush tangles and woods tend to always have a few to find come hunting season. Natural predators will never deplete a source of food completely, that would lead to their demise as well. Think it through. Nature knows what it's doing, especially when man keeps his nose out of it for the most part.

I respectfully disagree. Nature does not possess knowledge. Predators will ravage a food source to depletion and move on whether the environment is wild or maintained properly by humans.

Old Charlie Darwin in a letter to his friend Joseph Hooker wrote, “What a book a Devil's chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low and horridly cruel works of nature!” While he was probably writing in an evolutionary vein, he had a keen eye toward “nature”.

Darwin may have been drunk on the Beagle when he wrote that. :) We all have our thoughts but nature actually did very well without us and will go on when we are no longer on this planet.

The rabbit returned this evening to nurse the young ones. Here she just came out, checked around briefly, and then dashed off before attracting any attention. Some might call this interfering but in this neighborhood there's a good chance she won't make it the four weeks needed to wean them. Life is a crapshoot at all levels.

Krag, that's your backyard. I see nothing wrong in helping out the mother rabbit. Yes, some may say that's interfering with nature. But when there's vulnerability to the life of that litter and they're right there for you to see everyday, well that to me is showing a hunter that has heart...good for you.

Hope the bunnies make it.

As far as rabbits raiding the garden? Well a pic says it all eh? Cheap fencing...just don't buy that green plastic stuff, may look nicer but this momma rabbit chewed through it.

She loved my tomatoes but left the cucumbers alone.

Here she is again...chillin, with her belly full from a couple of cherry tomatoes I tossed to her.

I don't know how many litters she had that one year but I had at least a couple of generations roaming in the yard. Never found any nests, had to be in the overgrown lot next door.

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