A BUNNY BOOM IS WISHFUL THINKING

In this column, Simon outlines the essentials of good ferreting

Ihold a place in my heart for the wild rabbit. No other animal helps sculpt the landscape, often without people realising this amazing feat. It is a prey species, born into our world as the staple diet of a long list of predatory species, including humans. It possesses an incredible ability to outbreed danger and its population across the UK remained fairly stable — until the past few years.

Rabbit numbers are dwindling too quickly across large tracts of the country. A year of lockdowns has enabled them to have a bit of a boom due to the lack of pressure and disturbance at the hand of man. Even so, we must never allow ourselves to become complacent. Certain areas may have a bunny boom, but the dark spectre of disease is still looming and making mischief.

With advances in technology, and our greater understanding of its management, the wild bunny is finding it tough to gain a stronghold again in certain areas.

I believe that stress plays the leading role in this particular drama. The areas where an extraordinarily strong population exists are generally ones where there is little or no stress placed upon the rabbits other than the odd bout of disease. Land management is such that the predators of the rabbit are few and far between, leaving them to breed almost unchecked. When any animal is stress-free, their body is stronger and more resistant to disease.

In the majority of areas where the numbers are low, everything is after the rabbit. The stress placed upon them is far greater, so is the death from disease on top of every other predator or management. This curtails rabbits’ chances of regaining a foothold again, so a talk of a national bunny boom is most definitely wishful thinking.