Calling Doctor Fudd or "Be Vewy, Vewy Quiet, I'm Hunting Wabbits"

The rabbit population is getting out of hand. This morning on my morning walk, I spotted 11, six within 100 meters of our house. This is not the first morning I have seen more than half a dozen of the furry pests on my short 1/2 mile walk.

"El Gee, rabbits are cute. How bad could it really be?"

First off, let me say that my wife and I lived a few years in the country or just outside the 'burbs so animals in our yard does not normally bother me. In NC, we had owls, rabbits, squirrels, deer, opossum, hawks, chipmunks, raccoons, and even skunk visit us on a daily basis. Once in a while it was a minor problem (the voles were a pain until the owl moved in and the squirrels made a mess in our large 2 story shed) but all in all we had no major problems.

Here in North Central Texas, the developers have encroached on habitat of the critters and they are forced to come into the neighborhoods to look for food. I have seen a wide variety of things you would normally associate with the country wandering the streets of our suburban neighborhood. Rabbits, squirrels, armadillos, skunks, snakes, and even coyotes can be seen traversing in between homes on a daily basis.

In NC we had natural predators that kept things in check. Too many rabbits and the hawks and snakes would take care of them. Here, the predators do not come close enough (very often) to keep the population of rabbits down. Once in a while I will see a hawk or a falcon take out a dove or a pidgeon but the rabbits are chugging along at full force. The eat the green grass and weeds of many yards and leave the droppings in yours. The droppings kill the grass and weeds grow in its place. My yard, at times looks like a weed farm even though me and my wife are working in it constantly.

The coyotes around here have gotten lazy. They will sneak into a yard and get an aging pet rather than hunt down something in the wild.

All this is the fault greedy mankind and I guess I am not helping matters until I get back into the country and not worry about the natural course of nature.