Missing From My Gardens

This will be our fourth and possibly last summer at this house if it sells shortly.  The house is in a rural area on waterfront property so we have an abundance of wildlife some that are not always as helpful in the gardens as they could be.  Early this spring I spotted a second pair of wild rabbits so fully expected to be defending the garden against rabbits this year as well.  However they are glaringly absent from our yard and gardens.  There are signs of the raccoon still visiting  and we catch the scent of an occasional skunk but nothing from rabbits.  It is as if they just disappeared into thin air!

Most of the homes on our short dead end street have some type of vegetable garden so the area has been quite popular with the rabbits.  Up until the last month or so it was common to see one or more rabbits daily as they moved from yard to yard, garden to garden.  It was easy to tell when rabbits were getting into the vegetable gardens as well via the various pest deterrents gardeners were using.   As far as I know no one is trapping rabbits here either.  In our area the primary rabbit predators include but are not limited to foxes, coyotes, wolves, fishers, birds of prey (eg. hawks, owls) and domestic dogs and cats.  Each year vehicles get a few rabbits here as well but I haven't even seen signs of that.  There were recent reports of coyotes about 25 km east of us but none for our area and there are foxes in the area but not that close to the houses.  We don't have any neighbourhood dogs running loose but have 2 resident cats I call citizens on patrol.  However, they too have mysteriously been absent from the yards as well.  Something has gotten to our rabbit population! 

I suspect perhaps birds of prey and foxes may be the problem but I've seen none around the house and no signs of either.  Another factor could be hunting of which our county does allow both resident and non-resident hunting with various open seasons depending on the Wildlife Management Units (WMUs).  This is a more likely explanation for the sudden disappearance of wild rabbits in our area. 

Happy Gardening!

Garden Gnome
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