Since having rabbits for pets as a child, I have always been a lover of theirs - hence 'bobtails' in the name of my blog! Back in April whilst my dad was enjoying a hot air balloon ride, I walked around the grounds of Stanford Hall in South Leicestershire and spotted a colony of rabbits happily hopping in and out of their warrens. Following from this visit, I decided to read about some of the problems which face wild rabbits in the UK and found out about the Rabbit Haemorrhagic Disease (RHD). RHD was originally found in China in 1983 but unfortunately reached the non-native rabbits in the UK in 1992. It is a viral disease that causes severe haemorrhaging in organs in the body of rabbits. This is because of a process which causes excessive clotting and so blocks major blood vessels and will rapidly rupture them. Firstly, it affected domestic rabbits, with breeders confused at the rapid deaths of their adult rabbits. The virus soon spread to their wild relatives. According to data from the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, this deadly virus had devastating effects, particularly in Scotland in the late 90s. Numbers of wild rabbits in the UK reduced by approximately 1/3rd due to RHD and almost 50% in Scotland. When you love rabbits as much as I do, I find these figures quite distressing and also find it quite shocking to believe that many would actually be pleased because they would like a cull for rabbits. I understand that there is a concern for wild rabbits consuming a large amount of the crops being grown in the UK which is completely understandable considering that farming and agriculture is the basis to many people's livelihoods but even so, I cannot even begin to imagine how anybody could kill these creatures. This should never be the option. I am sure that there are a few alternatives - Whether there would be a way of covering the crops or creating a deterrent to the bunnies - there must be a better way. At the end of the day, rabbits are non-native to the UK meaning that somebody introduced them here and so why, as humans, do we always have to think of ourselves as superior to other wildlife even though we disrupted its natural balance in the first place? As always, it comes down to the fact that humans themselves are usually an animal's biggest threat! ©
0 Comments
|
Categories
All
|