Letter: The plain truth about rabbits
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Sir: As rabbit numbers reach their peak at the end of the breeding season we are once again treated to the annual sensationalist scaremongering that the species is about to take over the universe, this time in an otherwise sensible article on rabbit ranching ("He's small, he's furry and he's only a few weeks old. Doesn't he look good enough to eat?" - Weekend, 15 July). Some gross inaccuracies need correcting:
1. Rabbits are lagomorphs not rodents.
2. Data from our 12-year monitoring of a natural colony in East Anglia shows that young does never breed until the year following their birth and the maximum average number of emergent offspring per doe recorded in a year is 10. In practice then, does are not "fertile at three months, producing eight kits every five weeks, all year round ... so that two rabbits can become a million in three years".
3. There is no evidence for a current "population surge" in rabbits.
4. Myxomatosis is not "now confined to a few pockets in Britain"; it recurs annually over much of the country and remains a major mortality factor for young of the year. Last year it killed over 90 per cent of young present in our long-term study population.
5. Any of the heady figures estimating total UK rabbit numbers (in your article, 37.5 million) are very much guesstimates and therefore of highly dubious usefulness.
The article also neglected to mention the important and much publicised "new" rabbit disease, viral haemorrhagic disease (first reported in UK wild rabbits in November 1994) which has decimated populations throughout continental Europe and could well do the same here. So please, check your facts with non-biased sources before perpetuating the rabbit myths.
Yours,
Diana Bell
School of Biological Sciences
University of East Anglia
Norwich
17 July
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments