Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit
THE times are indeed ‘out of joint’. Never has it been so tempting to flee yet more details of bottle parties at home and wars and rumours of wars abroad and take refuge in Radio 3. However, out of the detritus that passes for news, there came a story last week that country people should not miss. It appears that some environmental enthusiasts are concerned that the rabbit population has diminished to such a degree that it will need human intervention to recover.
A group sponsored by Natural England called Shifting Sands is asking farmers and landowners to help the bunnies by giving them ‘rabbit hotels’, which are places for them to make love outside their burrows. Evidently, it is the burrows that harbour killing viruses and myxomatosis and haemorrhagic disease have been causing havoc among the rabbit population.
The idea that Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail might disappear from the English countryside forever drove these bunny huggers to distraction. Armed with public support and money, they have been researching how best to enable the rabbits to return in profusion and thus ensure we British can continue to relish the fantasy world so effectively populated by Beatrix Potter, Lewis Carroll and Alison Uttley.
The whole process has been driven from the entirely laudable ‘back-from-the-brink’ campaign designed to recover the biodiversity that we have shamefully destroyed. The science is indisputable. In the past 50 years, a mix of construction, modern farming techniques and the widespread use of chemicals and plastics has destroyed much of our natural inheritance. The recent Dasgupta report showed the economic damage involved and the importance of wildlife recovery to our battle against climate change. This is our last chance to recover what we have lost and secure the wonderful variety of the English countryside for future generations.
Necessary, laudable and properly a national endeavour, the enhancement of Britain’s biodiversity is an urgent priority, but why on earth start with the rabbit? Like the muntjac and the mink, Himalayan balsam and Japanese knotweed, the rabbit is not a native species, but an intruder. Rabbits were imported by the Normans, kept by monks as a source of food and then the pesky little things got out. They’ve been a menace ever since as they breed like… rabbits.
Agromenes has little doubt they will recover of their own accord, but, with a bit of luck, it will be a slow process that will take some time to reach me. After my best year for vegetable production, with the lawns recovering from rabbit depredation and the holes under the hedges filled with new soil, I’m rejoicing in a rabbit-free environment.
Of course, I deplore the fact these diseases have been artificially spread in the first place, but that doesn’t deny the fact that, were rabbits to be introduced in Britain now in 2022, the conservationists would be out there pointing to the damage they cause and demanding taxpayers’ money to eradicate this foreign pest.
Far from building rabbit hotels, we’d be trapping and shooting them and forming farmers’ clubs in hotspots. The demand to eradicate the ruddy duck would have nothing on the campaign to protect Britain from the rabbit—or the media condemnation of those who had brought rabbits to Britain and let them out.
Agromenes will see to it that there will be no rabbit hotels around here. My raised beds will produce ever more organic vegetables and my croquet will improve now that the lawn is not subject to rabbit runs. Mr Mcgregor was right and I rejoice in the temporary respite from this foreign invasion.
The enhancement of biodiversity is an urgent priority, but why start with the rabbit?