Winter is a tough time in my neighborhood, in part because of me. Several times a night my neighbors see my backyard light go on, hear my backdoor banging, and, in a few moments, my pleading with Philly and Peggy, my two noble dogs, to please come back in and LEAVE IT. IT is the real source of the problem, one of my backyard rabbits. The light and noise are to warn the rabbits that the dogs are being let out. The pleading is to stop the dogs from chasing the rabbits. The paintings below are of Peggy (left) and Philly (right), created by my talented wife, Sally Probasco.
My backyard has nice clumps of native flowers and bushes and a huge raspberry patch. My neighbors have extremely brushy fence lines. All this makes for perfect "rabbitat," a word one of my biologist friends coined. Once the rabbits turn to winter browsing, the raspberry canes become a preferred food.
Photo by USFWS Midwest
The dogs love to chase rabbits. And they are athletic and determined enough that they sometimes catch them. Happy dog, unhappy me, you can guess what state the rabbit is in. When the proud spaniel brings the rabbit, I am hoping it's uninjured. If Peggy has done the catching, that's usually the case. I gently take the rabbit and release it in the side yard. If Philly has caught the rabbit, I have to clean it—no point in wasting a perfectly good rabbit.
But I don't want them caught or even harassed so last winter I decided to perform some wildlife management. Rabbits have a favorite winter food in an urban setting—the branches and twigs of fruit trees. Last winter I pruned my pear and apple trees and stacked all the branches in the front yard near one of their hangouts. The theory was that the rabbits (I guessed I had one or two in the backyard) would hang out and feast on the easy pickings all winter. They'd be happy and safe and I would no longer be on rabbit guard duty. The pile of branches was gigantic. After one day, a rabbit had found the stash (rabbit sign is easy to find; no creature defecates more than a rabbit). And for a couple of days no leporine trace in the backyard (sorry, I tired of writing rabbit).
Then the pile of branches diminished at an alarming rate and piles of rabbit droppings were covering too much of the front yard. I had attracted rabbits from all over the neighborhood. You can guess the sad end to my career as a wildlife biologist. Once my backyard rabbits and their cousins had polished off the pile of prunings, they attacked my beloved raspberry patch. The canes were massacred. The dogs were delighted and I was activating my rabbit warning system the rest of the winter.
Great horned owl, photo by Arlene Koziol
Since this is a Madison Audubon blog I suppose I should include a bird reference. Early the last two mornings (one of my dogs' solemn duties is to make sure I'm up before sunrise) I've heard an owl hooting a few homes away to the northeast. Perhaps we'll have some natural control of the backyard rabbit population this winter.
Even with the raspberry destruction and the canine interactions and the lamebrained wildlife management, I really enjoy rabbits. They are a lovely, native animal. They move gracefully and are always fun to watch. They are certainly an important part of the web of life—for a rabbit, that's quite a euphemism—a horde of species love to eat rabbits. Lots of raptors do as do other birds, such as crows, when the rabbits are small.
I think for the next blog, I'll describe the work of some real wildlife experts, a nice change from me and a reason for some optimism in the new year.
Topf Wells, Madison Audubon board member and advocacy committee chair
