Rabbit decline

[wildman 512]

22 hours ago, shaneg said:

Where I live used to be crawling with rabbits. The field behind my house used to have a 15 yard ring all around the headlands come silage time it was like a golf course. Now you could walk every inch of the place all day every day and never see a rabbit. They all disappear in 2 years it went from thousands of rabbits to nothing. Any idea what would have caused this. We used to be able to catch 20 rabbits a night and 5 nights a week and never leave a dent in them. They disappeared 7 or 8 years ago and we all taught they would be back as good as ever in 2 years time but it never happened 

20x5=100  rabbits a week soon make a dent .had same on our perm took 10 years though 100+ then down to 70 ,s n 40 now not worth the time n diesel . greed

[bendrover 556]

Instead of bleating on about it . Get out and bag a load in winter . Dig out old burys and release . Go to anothe part of country and bag more   release in same burys . It works . The different blood helps with fighting disease and gene pool . Do it now and your bringing in disease . And try and release near villages etc as the shooters can't get at them . Give it a go

[wildman 512]

12 minutes ago, bendrover said:

Instead of bleating on about it . Get out and bag a load in winter . Dig out old burys and release . Go to anothe part of country and bag more   release in same burys . It works . The different blood helps with fighting disease and gene pool . Do it now and your bringing in disease . And try and release near villages etc as the shooters can't get at them . Give it a go

Who,s bleating .people just stateing what's happening all over .how is it possible to go to another part of country n bag up when there,s no fcuking bunnies 

[shaneg 2,578]

47 minutes ago, bendrover said:

Instead of bleating on about it . Get out and bag a load in winter . Dig out old burys and release . Go to anothe part of country and bag more   release in same burys . It works . The different blood helps with fighting disease and gene pool . Do it now and your bringing in disease . And try and release near villages etc as the shooters can't get at them . Give it a go

I did that 6/7 years back I ferreted rabbits from 4 or 5 different places. It was late February when we did it we let of about 40 and we were hoping that some were pregnant at that time we put them all into an old warren and left them be. Still never made a difference not one where we left them of now 

[poxon 5,751]

Wonder if any one has ever bought a buck wild colour pet rabbit for the kids from the pet shop had it vaccinated for mixy then lined it to wild doe rabbits then released wonder if the young would be more disease resistant?

[shaneg 2,578]

3 minutes ago, poxon said:

Wonder if any one has ever bought a buck wild colour pet rabbit for the kids from the pet shop had it vaccinated for mixy then lined it to wild doe rabbits then released wonder if the young would be more disease resistant?

We were going to do that to we started building cages in a shed and that was never finished 

[shaneg 2,578]

I would think you would have to use a wild buck she a pet doe I’d imagen a wild doe wouldn’t rear the young in captivity. Well that was out taught anyway 

[poxon 5,751]

1 minute ago, shaneg said:

I would think you would have to use a wild buck she a pet doe I’d imagen a wild doe wouldn’t rear the young in captivity. Well that was out taught anyway 

I mean catch line An release back to the same warrens 

[bendrover 556]

1 hour ago, wildman said:

Who,s bleating .people just stateing what's happening all over .how is it possible to go to another part of country n bag up when there,s no fcuking bunnies 

You ain't looking hard enough or far enough

[bendrover 556]

There is no vaccination against 2nd strain 

[ftm 3,357]

3 hours ago, bendrover said:

Instead of bleating on about it . Get out and bag a load in winter . Dig out old burys and release . Go to anothe part of country and bag more   release in same burys . It works . The different blood helps with fighting disease and gene pool . Do it now and your bringing in disease . And try and release near villages etc as the shooters can't get at them . Give it a go

Used to do this on a regular basis mate and release on industrial estates and mineral lines .always plenty to keep the spaniel keen  .if farmer or landowner wants rid you either do it or he gets someone else to do it  .theres still plenty about lads 

[Bobtheferret 1,248]

By far and away the best permissions I have are small holdings and smaller farms that have no crops (just sheep or cows) the bigger estates and farms often have keepers shooting and farmers just won’t poke up with huge areas of wheat eaten off and give permission to anyone with a rifle and that coupled with mixi and rhvd just means the old rabbit is getting hammered. Definitely worth looking a bit harder for smaller permissions that may only be 10 acres or so but hold good numbers and then just take a fair crop rather than wipe them out. 

[rob284 1,682]

I find they’re all over the country but in small pockets. A small area of a couple of farms may be lifting with them but a mile down the road and there’s none. I put it down to the boom in buzzards. It was a rare sight 20 year ago to come across a buzzard now they’re common place and will hunt in urban areas which must be ruining the rabbit and hare population, anything that moves is dead.

[Str 793]

1 minute ago, rob284 said:

I find they’re all over the country but in small pockets. A small area of a couple of farms may be lifting with them but a mile down the road and there’s none. I put it down to the boom in buzzards. It was a rare sight 20 year ago to come across a buzzard now they’re common place and will hunt in urban areas which must be ruining the rabbit and hare population, anything that moves is dead.

Buzzards near you must carry Kalashnikovs.

[wildman 512]

6 minutes ago, rob284 said:

I find they’re all over the country but in small pockets. A small area of a couple of farms may be lifting with them but a mile down the road and there’s none. I put it down to the boom in buzzards. It was a rare sight 20 year ago to come across a buzzard now they’re common place and will hunt in urban areas which must be ruining the rabbit and hare population, anything that moves is dead.

Buzzards are lazy birds they will take rabbits but not hare .could be a factor but I don't think that the new found buzzard population is the cause of the demise of millions of well established rabbits