The Coming & Going of Robert

At first the rabbit was regarded as valuable. The OSA stresses the economic importance of the species at Ardrossan ‘in the winter season rabbits were sold without skin for 7d a pair. (over £2 at today’s value). And at Dowally ‘there is a rabbit warren … in a low sandy haugh, two miles to the westward of Dunkeld, and has been let at £25 Sterling of rent (about £1800 today). On an average, 125 dozen were killed by the tacksman yearly.’

This spread of wild rabbits is echoed in many NSA reports: ‘One species of mammal which formerly were never seen here except in warrens, has now overspread the country, and is more destructive to turnips and other vegetables than even the hare.’ (Glenmuick, Aberdeenshire). ‘It is only within these last few years that rabbits made their appearance in the parish in a wild state, but to such an extent have they increased, as in several instances to prove injurious to crops and plantations.’ (Sorn, Ayrshire).

It is tempting to think that, in those early days of scarcity of meat, rabbits would surely have provided a much needed source. But this clearly was not so. Although ‘lords and lairds’ had been directed in the seventeenth century to make ‘cunningaries’ (rabbit warrens), the Statistical Account reveals that even in the late eighteenth century rabbits could still be something of a rarity. By the end of the following century, they were obviously in fairly common use as food, and in Orkney for example formed part of the farm-workers’ wages. They had even become so much of a pest in some areas that an Act was passed in 1880, giving tenants the right to destroy them. .

The rabbit is very prolific, frequently breeding four times a year, and said to live seven or eight years. Little wonder that the rabbit has become symbolic of fecundity.

Going

In the first half of 20th century the rabbit became the most serious agricultural pest and by 1950 it was estimated that £40-50 million was lost to agriculture as a result of rabbits while income from meat and fur represented a mere £15 million from a harvest of some 40 million rabbits.

In 1896 a virus had been discovered among laboratory animals in Uruguay that was so specific to rabbits that even hares were not affected. The virus was first released in Australia in 1950 with, at first, little effect. Then suddenly in the wet season the disease spread through the wild rabbits causing a huge reduction in what had become plague and the population was reduced to reasonable numbers.

In 1952 a strain of the virus from a Swiss laboratory was introduced into an enclosed community of rabbits near Paris. The virus was spread both by rabbit fleas and mosquitoes and was soon among the French wild rabbit population.

From there it reached Britain in the autumn of 1953 and spread throughout England in the following year reaching Scotland by the summer. The disease killed 99% of the rabbits and suddenly unleashed a flowering of orchids and other wildflowers that had formerly been grazed by the rabbits.

Rabbits slowly recovered partly by developing partial immunity and because of increased litter size consequent on abundance of food and by 1986 there was still only 20% of pre-myxomatosis population levels. Early in the 1950s the rabbit population of Britain was about 100 million; now it is nearly 40% of 1950 numbers. The few left still drive me mad in the garden!