Where are the rabbits?

[Alan Zoff]

A friend of mine - a real countryman - visited me in Allier last week and was immediately struck by the absence of rabbits. He couldn't understand why terrain so similar to his native Gloucestershire was not similarly swarming with the creatures. After all, you only need 2 (of the opposite sex) and before you know it you have a colony in England. So why not in France?

I appreciate that there are a lot of aerial predators but if they are living on rabbits, there has to be an adequate food supply for them to survive - so why don't we see any signs of their prey (road kill, burrows, droppings, etc)?

I said someone on the Forum (Chris perhaps) was sure to have a sensible answer.

[Dog]

In my hamlet we had no rabbits until this year and now have plenty and a third are jet black.

[krusty]

Loads of them live near me. [:-))]

[cooperlola]

On people's dinner tables.

[JohnRoss]

Very few rabbits but lots of big hares and coypu in this part of Deux Sevres. The only rabbits I have seen were in cages in back gardens kept for eating.......................................JR 

Hares here  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kddFC-Yi4yo  

[Panda]

It is something that occured to me lots of times when in France, as your friend says in a similar situation in the UK you see hundreds of rabbits but I lived in 3 different areas each time I had around 20 acres that I lived on and walked in every day and never saw one. 

[water rat]

if you own a couple of Jack Russels or Ratiers, then you'll see the rabbits!

They're around ,but much more timid ,posssibly due to being hunted more intensively.

[Iceni]

[quote user="Dog"]In my hamlet we had no rabbits until this year and now have plenty and a third are jet black.

[/quote]

M. Le Pen warned us that this would happen but did we listen ?

John

[chris pp]

It's an interesting question and both has been and continues to be researched by various French structures. Soil structure is considered to be a major factor, rabbits require a well drained soil. Any soil that becomes water logged, even on a hill or slope, is useless for them. It is obviously of benefit if that soil is light in structure, although having said that, at the new reserve at Lac Saint Cyr where new bays and channels have been excavated the structure is effectively all stones and rocks and yet rabbits have rapidly arrived where the spoil has been piled much higher than the water level. Disruption is also a factor, regularly ploughed fields are a no no. Generally, (very), the best sites for rabbits are in and around towns, villages and large hamlets where the ground is usually well drained and there is minimal disturbance. Myxomatosis is a factor, hunting less so.

Chris

 

[valB]

They are all in my garden digging up my plants every night and tormenting my labrador. [:)]

[Joe]

I have seen a few around here.

[Alan Zoff]

Thanks for all the replies, especially Chris with his usual informative response.

It would seem to vary according to region, although my friend thought conditions looked perfect here for rabbits. Certainly not just a case of their all being in hiding as we could not find signs of burrows or droppings, let alone the animals themselves. (Plenty of deer and some sanglier, though, the latter hunted mercilessly by the local chasseurs, including - rather conveniently - our butcher.)

[Framboise]

We rarely see rabbits where we are in 61, however my friend who lives 15 mins from me is inundated with them.   They invade her barn, wreck her lawn and are a real nuisance.   Moles do that for me!  Strangely enough we see more hares than rabbits round these parts.

[Joy1]

We live just outside Le Havre. We had been here for 3 years before I saw my first rabbit! We now have a small colony on a piece of land adjacent to the main road near our town. I do hear lots of hunters out on saturdays - even this close to the city! I always assumed they were after rabbits. Joy

[ventodue]

Agree - it is an interesting question. And while I claim no particular expertise in rabbit ecology, I'm with Chris that dry land is important - obviously, burrow-living rabbits will struggle to survive in land that gets regularly flooded.

Other factors known to restrict rabbit populations are:

1. Grass height: Rabbits do best where the grass is already short, for example because it is already grazed, especially by sheep (or kangaroos, even .. :-) )

2. Predation: Rabbits are heavily predated and this predation can restrict the growth of small populations. For example, one post-mixy study in Oz showed that the rabbit population failed to recover simply due to predation by feral cats - whose own population had coincidentally grown because of a decline in trapping.

So, 2 possible reasons: lack of suitable ground and heavy predation. But I wouldn't be surprised if there are others ...

Amicalement

Craig

[Chancer]

I have never known a chasseur bag a rabbit around here, we dont have any woodlands remaining after WW1 except small reserves that farmers have planted for wildlife to flourish ready for the next hunting season, they are small but numerous and you can often see animals legging it across the cultivated land between them.

We actually have much more abundance of wildlife here than in my local Ashdown Forest in the UK which makes me understand the conservation aspect of La Chasse.

Back to rabbits there used to be loads living in the embankments beside the on and off ramps of the local rocade, no-one ever hunted them there and they flourished but I havnt seen them for a couple of years and suspect that the farmers or the commune poisoned them.

[chris pp]

[quote user="Chancer"]

We actually have much more abundance of wildlife here than in my local Ashdown Forest in the UK which makes me understand the conservation aspect of La Chasse.

[/quote]

Always fascinates me when someone says something like that, any chance of a few examples of how you came to that "conclusion"?

Chris

[Dog]

Interesting about soil drainage we have very poorly drained soil and a highwater table plus lots of clay.

We sadly find shallow burrows with abandoned newly born rabbits quite regularly.

[Ron-sur-Marne]

They are all at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris.

You see hundreds of them plane-spotting when landing or taking-off, and also when taxiing to/from the runway..

I believe they are a problem for Aeroports de Paris, but I don't know the details.

One thing is sure, there's no-one with a gun there (except the security services)!

[chris pp]

Some here as well........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PIhrsqQMYE

Chris

 

[ventodue]

Re. Chris' post (the quote function on this Forum doesn't seem to work properly, does it ?)

Notice how short the grass is? (ref. my earlier posting about how short grass favours rabbits). Presumably the same at Charles de Gaulle ...

Amicalement

Craig

[Chancer]

[quote user="chris pp"][quote user="Chancer"]

We actually have much more abundance of wildlife here than in my local Ashdown Forest in the UK which makes me understand the conservation aspect of La Chasse.

[/quote]

Always fascinates me when someone says something like that, any chance of a few examples of how you came to that "conclusion"?

Chris

[/quote]

Sorry to take so long to reply Chris.

I was going to say that I can only give ancdotal evidence on what I see when walking in or driving through the country areas, it seems to me that many species have been hunted to extinction in the UK long ago well before the current conservation lobby and that the aim of the chasse organisations is to protect and encourage more animals to hunt and kill [:-))]

I was thinking specifically of sangliers which are really prevalent in my area and I am pretty sure that there are no wild boars in England, correct me if I am wrong.

Tonight there was a program on this very subject where farmers were complaining of the exploding numbers of Sanglier, the fact that they were not allowed to cull them on their own land except in the season and that the chasseurs were putting out feeding stations to fatten them up so that they breed more prolifically, I wrote down some figures, please correct me if I am wrong as I doubted my memory on one of them.

Currently 1 million sangliers in France

500,000 abattu last year, soi 30 times as many as 20 years ago (that is the one I am uncertain of)

17000 sangliers a year hit by cars, which totally wrecks the car in most cases equalling one every 30 minutes.

I understand that they are now accepted as a real problem and that there are no hunting restrictions yet the hunters are doing their best to increase the numbers and are pleased to see the numbers killed increase year on year, I believe that this is true of most hunted species, again correct me if I am wrong, i really want to be more informed.

Voila, that is how I came to my conclusion that La Chasse protects wild animals, I agree that it is pretty bizarre to protect a specie with the sole intent to be able to continue getting pleasure from killing it, but is that so different from say Africa where species are really under threat and would there not be more native species in the UK if La Chasse had been part of our culture?

P.S. I am not a hunter but have kept an open mind and went to see a series of nature films made by the Picardy hunting movement which made me question some of my preconceived ideas.

[chris pp]

Firstly you can't compare the Flora and Fauna of the UK to France, the entire habitat structure and the species present are completely different. You are more or less correct about Wild boar in the UK, however they are in fact present in many parts of the UK but that is a relatively recent matter as a result of escapes from farm enclosures. Prior to these releases they hadn't been present for some 700 years.

I quote: "" The date at which wild boar finally became extinct in Britain is unclear due to subsequent attempts at re-introduction. In continental Europe, wild boar were (and still are) widely distributed and attempts were made in the 18th and 19th centuries to re-introduce animals to Britain from abroad, initially into private estates for hunting purposes. James 1st released animals firstly from France and then from Germany into Windsor Park in 1608 and 1611 respectively. His son, Charles 1st (reigned 1625-1649), also released boar into the New Forest from Germany. These re-introductions were not successful in the long term as the majority of people regarded wild boar as [agricultural] pests and saw to their destruction.""

The fact that sanglier have expanded rapidly in France between the start of the 1970's and the present is because they are one of the few species that has actually benefited from modern agricultural practises, especially the cultivation of maize which started about then and really got going in the mid 1980's. Over a similar time span the number of enclosed private hunts has expanded in France but this has no bearing on this. Also the number of hunters has more or less halved.

Artificially created wallows and maize heaps are to draw boar into an area to facilitate their destruction, (that's the theaory anyway), not to give them a helping hand.

No other native species that is hunted in France has seen a similar population expansion and "la chasse" does nothing itself to protect the environment or native species. What they do is pay for the breeding and release of more than 10 million non native species a year such as pheasant and red legged partridge and very recently the captive breeding of mallard duck. Ringing of these birds shows that the majority are killed within the first few weeks of release and within a few hundred metres of the release.

I understand how you were mislead into thinking there was a "conservation aspect of La Chasse", and if you have any other questions I'm always pleased to try to present the facts.

Cheers for now, Chris

 

[nectarine]

lots of rabbits in my garden but a local farmer has told me that myxamatosis has made a comeback, and there's plenty of rabbits dying in their burrows and hence causing a big fly problem.

[Mareille]

[quote user="chris pp"]

It's an interesting question and both has been and continues to be researched by various French structures. Soil structure is considered to be a major factor, rabbits require a well drained soil.

 

[/quote]

Interesting as on my farm back in the UK we had lots of rabbits on our heavy clay mainly arable farm prior to myxomatosis and now here in France I am told up until a serious malady a few years ago rabbits were quite a problem on the property and the land here cannot be described as either light or well drained

Chris