It is my hope that any minute I'll be interrupted while writing this to deliver yet another feral rabbit into the hands of an eager rabbit lover.
Since some idiot let loose their domestic rabbits in my neighborhood, they have proliferated, to say the least. Did you know that only one pair of rabbits can produce 13 MILLION young (the young breed as young as four months) within three years? (Source: Paul Paradise in Rabbits (T.F.H. Publications, 1979.)
It's no wonder it's considered the patriotic duty of every Australian to run over rabbits on the highway at every opportunity. New Zealanders mostly feel the same.
Just do a google search on "rabbit population" to see what a terribly destructive power rabbits can be. Here in Alaska they are dealing with the sub-zero temperatures just fine, too.
Keeping in mind their capacity for breeding, here are some reasons not to give your rabbits their "freedom":
1. They dig. They dig and dig and dig and will dig the foundation right out from under a building.
2. They eat EVERYTHING. Okay, they won't chop down forests but they will eat all the bushes, shrubs, grasses, and even your potted plants. Everything. You'll never have a garden again.
3. In the Interior, and many other places in the world, rabbits are vectors for tularemia. Dogs, cats and people can all get tularemia, and both dogs and cats can die of it. It is treated with antibiotics. It is serious. Many State governments have pages on tularemia in both pets and people, and rabbits are how most people and pets get it. The CDC has information as well.
4. They are a prey species. They are going to die anyway. Letting them "run free" is only going to make sure that one day they either starve to death, get shot, get caught and torn to pieces by a dog or fox, or taken by an owl or lynx. Up here the baby rabbits freeze to death. They make up for their loss of numbers in springtime.
Please, please please folks. Take responsibility for your animals and don't ever let your rabbits out. Give them away, take them to the animal shelter or a rabbit rescue organization, but don't let them loose to injure the environment, not to mention someone else's foundation!
