Interesting little article on Myxomatosis

[serrac]

https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/notes-from-the-sticks-the-rabbit-pandemic/

As a child I always enjoyed spotting rabbits by the roadside when we drove through the countryside at night.
I don't recall ever seeing a deer.
Now I see deer all the time, even in the park in the middle of my town, but rarely a rabbit.
Quite sad really.

[Keith 66]

When i was a kid in the 60's & 70's there were hordes of rabbits locally (Benfleet Hadleigh), To the extent that sometimes the fields appeared to be a moving grey carpet, Our local farm was plagued by them & the farmer encouraged us to bag as many as possible with our air rifles & later with a .410 & 12 bore. Mxy came & hit them hard once in a while. They would recover & the survivors would retain some immunity. I once read that such immunity lasted for about 7 generations after which it peters out. Probably explains why we would appear to get a bad outbreak of the disease every 3 years or so.

About 5 -10 years ago the numbers appeared to be dropping off & we put it down to the new disease vhd, they havent really recovered, there are still bunnies about but a fraction of the numbers there once were.

Now there seem to be as many muntjac as rabbits, but round here in suburbia with country parks & reserves everywhere nobody is ever going to control them!

[Aled]

Interesting article serrac. 

[Bigbob]

I got my first ferret when i was 8 years old im 60 odd now always hunted the rabbit , always thought i would kept up to 12 ferrets mates had a good few as well feels like i always had airguns got my first shotgun cert at 15 dad was supposed to accompany for a year till i was 16 just told shot some rabbits . got a rifle shoot the rabbits during the day lamp them at night now there saying you are not firing enough bullets do you need that gun ?. 

What have we done to the poor rabbit if it was done to anything else the R.S.P. C. A. would be on its case

[marsh man]

We really took Rabbits for granted , if we needed any we knew where to look and nine times out of ten we found some , Yes we had the dreaded myxy from year to year but overall we were never totally clear of Rabbits , just that some years we had more or less than others.

It must had been in the very early seventies I saw my first wild Red Deer , I was on the edge of some forestry commission land waiting for the fog to lift first thing in the morning so I could have a go on a Pea field , sitting in my motor the fog started to lift and thirty yards away were three full size Red deer , I can't remember if I shot any Pigeons that day but the sight of those three deer will stay in the memory bank for ever .

Now it would be a talking point if we went a day and never saw one , they are everywhere .