Rabbits, Raccoons & Skunks

Often, people welcome the presence of rabbits around their homes. Other times, people perceive rabbits as a nuisance because they feed on garden vegetation and other plants.

Humans throughout the world have attempted to control rabbit populations by employing a host of inhumane methods. In Australia and New Zealand for example, people have destroyed rabbit warrens through ripping, plowing, blasting, and fumigating, have baited rabbits with poison, shot and hunted rabbits with dogs and ferrets, and even released rabbit fleas carrying the myxoma virus into rabbit populations. In North America, rabbits are also fumigated and killed with poison by developers, universities, corporations, housing projects, etc. While such methods have had some impact on the rabbit populations, the rabbit's vigorous breeding habits have made effective control by such methods impossible. Additionally, they are incredibly cruel and short sighted. Thus far, the only truly effective method of rabbit population control has been to allow rabbits to breed to the point of overpopulation, at which point they lack food sources, and begin to die out. People can, however, lessen the impact of rabbits near their homes by taking the following measures:

• Allow predators of the rabbit to frequent the area near your home, if such predators exist in your area. These predators include include hawks, owls, foxes, coyotes, weasels, skunks, badgers, lynx, and wolves.
  
  
• Use rabbit-proof fencing around gardens. Bury fencing one foot beneath the ground, and make it three feet high. Wrap trees with wire mesh as well.
  
  
• Purchase non-lethal repellent spray and spray it around garden.

Many of the rabbits living in colonies at golf courses, on college campuses, and in urban parks around the country are actually domestic rabbits, released by their former guardians when they no longer wanted them.

Like wild rabbits, domestic rabbits will breed prolifically, and can cause damage to plants. Unlike American wild rabbits and hares, domestic rabbits (who are descended from European rabbits), will burrow, creating elaborate warrens underground.

If you have a situation in your area where there is a population of feral rabbits who are most likely domestic (i.e. they may be colors other than brown, and they are living at least part time underground), these rabbits should be captured with humane traps and brought to a local humane society or rescue organization.

House Rabbit Society (www.rabbit.org), a national rabbit rescue and education organization, provides information on humane capture, and has chapters across the country that may be able to help solve these kinds of problems. In some areas, volunteers have been able to catch, spay or neuter, and re-release these rabbits into the areas in which they were living. While this may not solve the problem, it at least eliminates the population explosion that results from rabbits being released into the wild.

Raccoons and Skunks

Raccoons and skunks consume a diet consisting primarily of rodents and insects. A tempted animal, however, may also eat trash, disrupting and even overturning garbage cans.

Raccoons and skunks also fight with cats and dogs on occasion. Because humans have regulated and eliminated many of the raccoon's natural predators, including the wolf and coyote, raccoon populations have increased. In the Midwest and other regions, unregulated raccoon populations pose a danger to the wood turtle and other species that the raccoon feeds on. In addition, an increased raccoon population means a greater risk of rabies and other diseases being passed on to cats, dogs, and sometimes humans.

In the past and sometimes at present, trappers have killed raccoons and sold their fur to the fur industry. In Defense of Animals views these measures as unnecessary and inhumane. We do need to implement viable alternatives to such lethal measures, however, to insure the balance of environments where raccoons exist, and to control their populations in urban areas, to which raccoons adapt easily. As with other animals, the elimination of potential food sources is a key to making your home a less attractive destination for these creatures.

• Keep garbage cans in an enclosed area. Clamp lids on cans to avoid broadcasting smells to raccoons and other animals.
  
  
• Keep cat and dog food inside.
  
  
• Consider keeping your cats inside. Check both cats and dogs for roundworms, and keep their immunizations up to date.
  
  
• Enclose gardens with fencing. Prevent raccoons and skunks from digging below the fence by planting it underground.
  
  
• Allow natural predators, such as the coyote, to roam your property.