Sadly I knew it

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LovelyLadyLux
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Sadly I knew it

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

From time to time on here I've complained about the over abundance of rabbits that are here. At any given time you can see a rabbit anywhere and in the evening you can easily see 6 to a dozen or more in any given area eating by the side of the road.

Lots of people here have gone over up and beyond to insist that the rabbits have 'rights' and we all need to protect them blah blah blah - same argument here goes for all the excess deer and Canadian geese (who have now crapped sufficient in some of the lakes they're now unfit to swim in!)

Anyway - just saw this NOTICE:

Rabbit virus alert. Sadly with rabbit haemorrhagic fever(also goes by rabbit calicivirus disease). Symptoms of RHD include fever,loss of appetite,spasms,and lethargy before dying within 12-36 hours, although many die without showing any symptoms.


So now we can all experience rabbit dropping dead all over the place after suffering horribly from this virus. At least once they get it it doesn't take long for them to go. There was a notice in the paper last week when I got home that some EVIL PERSON had obvious killed six or so rabbits at the University as dead rabbit bodies where lying all over the place. Am guessing now that the bodies have been examined or autopsied they've discovered they died because of this.

The University has a ridiculous number of rabbits living there and 'easy' you can see 40 to 50 on the lawns at any given time.

Any talk of "managing" the rabbits aka culling the numbers was met with real resistance by the PC do-gooders so in my books they can now carry the blame for this.


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Re: Sadly I knew it

Post by Mad Dilys »

No predators, big problem every time with prey animals. Time for the ultimate predator to step in unfortunately, it is what it is.

I had rabbit as a staple food as a child, I've bred fancy rabbits and had them as pets, but I'm a realist sadly.
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Re: Sadly I knew it

Post by Horus »

Sounds like it may be a variant or mutation of the Myxomatosis virus that we had in the UK many years ago. It seriously depleted the rabbit population and was not a pretty sight as the rabbits died a cruel death with bulging infected eyes. Since then the population has made a reasonable recovery and we have subsequently had more outbreaks although they seem to be less virulent as maybe the rabbit population has built up some immunity to the disease. I suspect a similar thing to happen on your island, mass deaths of rabbits followed by a slow build up, but not back to the previous high levels as the population stabilises again.
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Re: Sadly I knew it

Post by Mad Dilys »

I agree Horus. T'was ever thus overcrowding is abhorred by Nature and one way or another numbers will be reduced, whether it be plant, animal or human. Watch out humans!
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Re: Sadly I knew it

Post by Ruby Slippers »

Wasn't myxomatosis deliberately introduced in Britain to kill off the rabbit population?
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Re: Sadly I knew it

Post by Mad Dilys »

Yup! As if we were over run with rabbits - at the same time it was against the law to trap, snare or shoot them without permission of the landowner. Lot of hungry people about at that time too.

The upshot was, with the rabbits decimated the Chinese sent tons and tons of frozen rabbit meat at a price below production to get hard currency. The hungry Brits got cheap meat. The rest is History.
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Re: Sadly I knew it

Post by Horus »

It was actually first introduced into Australia from South America to control their rabbit population.
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Re: Sadly I knew it

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

We are overrun by rabbits, Canadian Geese and deer yet we have sufficient PC'ers who scream and protest anytime there is mention of a cull which is DESPERATELY needed.

About two years ago even in the marsh behind me there was constant squawking by the geese. Nonstop and sounded like a barnyard. Very noticeable noise then one morning I went out and dead silence with all the geese gone. I don't know what happened but I do believe the Wildlife guys came through in the night and took 'em all. Nobody would really notice in my marsh - kids out of school and there are only a couple of us who have a view. This marsh was probably one of the few they could act on without having people protesting them.

We have several swimming lakes in the City but nobody can swim because of all the fecal matter from the geese which is sad. Don't object to a few but when you have a relatively small lake and a population of 500 or so geese on it it is rather overpopulated.

Same with the rabbits. They're destroying gardens IF they get into them and you can't kill/trap/harm them. I've sworn I'll get another dog first time I see one in my yard simply cause you're not seeing ONE you're easily seeing more then you can count.

The other interesting thing about the rabbits here is that you're seeing them in all colours and all ear variations meaning they've all been had as pets and escaped or deliberately released. Our wild rabbit is brown and fairly small and those (years ago) you rarely saw but what you're seeing here are tame rabbits.

The deer are also a huge concern as there are so many of them they're now small, looking starved and diseased. The PCers are feeding them which means they lose the fear of coming up to your house, are always wandering about the roads causing accidents AND they're bringing the bigger predators in. This means they (cougars) get shot as everybody panics when they take up residence eyeballing a school picking out the juiciest child.

The thinking of so many these days is so crazy. Not doing what needs to be done, shouting down anybody who wants to make a decision and then ultimately making bigger problems.
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Re: Sadly I knew it

Post by Mad Dilys »

Unfortunately natural life is linked together. We can't pick and choose to have no predators and just a few bunnies and pretty deer, doesn't work like that.

If people want to live with nature, they have to accept it's risks of tooth and claw. Otherwise it's a sterile city type environment with personal pets I guess.

I had a small organic farm which had a fox earth in an ancient rabbit warren, plus stoats, weasels and from the river occasional mink. When the fox moved in fox raids on the poultry stopped. I had heard that foxes don't kill near their earth and it was true with us. About 50 metres from their earth was a spot where every kill seemed to be plucked, dismembered and eaten. I could always tell what was on the menu from the remains and it was never my poultry. They mostly ate ducks from the crayfish beds on the other side of the river and a surprising amount of pigeons.

Mink would kill several of my birds and bury them rather inefficiently. I was a bit peeved when one of a pair of peacocks that I hand raised was visited in his pen and had half his head eaten and was pretty well bled out. Stoat I should think, I also had 20 out of 22 ducks nearly ready for Christmas with their head off - visiting fox I guess as that was before the warren was taken over.

I regarded it as a kind of tax for the pleasure of living among animals and birds that were naturally in a very rural area. To see tiny fox cubs staggering out into the light for the first time, unaware of my presence while I remained still only a few feet away, their little gooseberry green eyes opened wide and unfocused I will never forget.
The dog fox would sometimes lie out in the field by a bed of nettles in a tight ball, but keeping a wary eye on me as I did my daily tour of inspection.

We had huge numbers of voles, so had lots of visits from owls and kestrels and lots, lots more ............. oh it was such a privilege and joy. I've been very, very lucky. :up
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Re: Sadly I knew it

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

Now that work is really out the gov't is issuing mega statements & warnings as more and more rabbit carcasses are showing up everywhere. The Gov't has actually issued a prediction that in 2 weeks time this virus will have worked through the entire rabbit population here which is incredibly fast for a virus to work through a population. Really gives one pause when you consider how fast something like this can spread especially if it was working on people. Definitely scarey.
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Re: Sadly I knew it

Post by Mad Dilys »

Indeed, remember the Great Plague?

Not to be morbid, but I enjoy the privilege of life while I can as the next plague may be just a whisper away.
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Re: Sadly I knew it

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

With all these superbugs that are developing I kinda think MD you might be right. I'm never going to be surprised to hear of an outbreak starting - almost like the ebola virus breakout of a year or so ago. We could all be subject to a new virulent virus making the 'rounds.
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Re: Sadly I knew it

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

In this world of today when nothing seems to make sense another level of 'crazy' comes into play.

To date the City or Animal Control of Fish & Wildlife (not sure exactly who) have picked up 300 dead rabbits. Presumably the ones they can see that have died out in the open. This has caused a mass "oh dear this is so terrible for all these poor wee bunnies to be dying so LETS RESCUE THE REST!"

Yup - there is one concern that this diesease has now spread north (1 hour drives on highway north) as dead rabbits are turning up there and it will soon spread south to the Capital City of Victoria.

Now Victoria has an extremely severe rabbit problem and a year or so ago (I think I might have posted about it on here as it was so ridiculous in my mind) a group of (ahem) Concerned Animal Rights/Welfare People caught, trapped, spayed & neutered a few hundred rabbits and then sent them all to an animal rescue facility in Costa Rica!! They spent literally thousands of dollars to save the hundreds of rabbits that were in this one section of highway close to the entrance to the City.

This same idea has now come to light again and the call is for anybody who can to catch whatever rabbits they can and transport them away in this case to a Rabbit Rescue somewhere in the State of Washington!

I personally think it is terrible this disease has arrived here. I think it is terrible that this overflow of rabbit rabbit rabbit absolutely everywhere was not managed or controlled and now there is a disease outbreak that is going to affect the entire food chain that relied on them. Seems this crazy idea of 'rescuing rabbits' is nothing short of naively stupid! In catching and transporting rabbits from an area already infected with a virus that can spread via bugs, birds, air or even walking through the ground it is on it would only take 1 rabbit to introduce it to another entirely new area.

The second call is that we all need to raise $$ to import an antidote. I don't think there is an immunization but somewhere there is an antidote and we need funds to bring it here so Fluffy can be innoculated so as to live a happy healthy life........????

Just my rant of today as how silly we seem to have gotten. It is terrible and awful but moving rabbits to a sanctuary is ludicrous as is trying to trap, innoculate and release rabbits that are domestic escapees in the first place. I'm much more concerned with what the cougars, wolves, fox are going to eat now their primary food source is disappearing and how to contain this so it doesn't spread off the Island to the Mainland.

I'd also love to see strict rules in place re: keeping rabbits as pets. They're far too easily released when the owner gets tired of them.
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Re: Sadly I knew it

Post by Horus »

These plagues die out naturally (excuse the pun) a bit like wildfires, once they have consumed the available fuel, in this case the rabbits, it will all return to normal levels until the next time they over populate the area.
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Re: Sadly I knew it

Post by Mad Dilys »

How is this rabbit plague spread? Myxomatosis was largely spread by mosquitoes in the UK, thus it spread to isolated pet rabbits as well as the wild ones. :(
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Re: Sadly I knew it

Post by Horus »

Fleas and mosquitoes and some evidence that it can be airborne in close proximity. ;)
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Re: Sadly I knew it

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

They've told us here that this virus is very virulent and can be carried on shoes (some thought to making everybody start stepping in bleach and bleaching the bottoms of your shoes but ???), is blown about by the air, is spread by bugs, birds - seemingly anything and everything so virtually impossible to stop IMO.
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Re: Sadly I knew it

Post by Horus »

It is impossible to stop, our experience in the UK is that it tends to burn itself out eventually, but remains endemic in the rabbit population and recures periodically.
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Re: Sadly I knew it

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

Most of the (ahem) WILD rabbits here were domestic varieties at some point. Here you're not seeing the plain brown big eared rabbits you're seeing white & black ones, long haired ones, one with droopy ears or fuzzy heads. You're seeing tiny rabbits & huge rabbits - all domestic ones that were bred to have a specific look. The worst location for them was the University (and they spread out from there) and it is very easy to imagine students acquiring soft fuzzy pets that don't make noise but 'Oh where do I put fluffy now that my term has ended? Well I'll let him/her go'!

I'm betting that it is more than possible a student acquired a rabbit from who knows where, it got sick so rather than take it to a Vet (which is extremely expensive here) they released it with it having this (my own theory as to how this started).

It is spreading and will continue to do so. I'm just more amazed/amused at the antics of those wanting to "rescue" the remaining (wild) rabbits and transport them to a sanctuary.
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