Rabbits, Hares and Family Relations

March 24, 2024

    We have a few rabbits around Lonesome.  Generally, you see them in the evening on the ride back from town.  They are great creatures for deciding to cross the road right in front of you.  Animals don’t seem to comprehend automobiles.  

    Have you ever noticed how a moose will trot ahead of you when there are lots of easy places to enter the bush?  It makes some sense if the vehicle pursues them on the road.   They expect the same will happen in the woods.  I slow down and even stop to let them get organized.  Even then, I have followed moose for over a mile.  Snow birds or Longspurs will fly ahead of a vehicle for a long way, too.  They like the open feel of the road and don’t really want to head into the trees.
   

     I was reading about rabbits recently.  It was a story about a group of rabbits on a journey to find a new home and their trials and tribulations.  One thing I liked about it was the use of certain words in Lapin, the rabbit language.  For instance, “elil” refers to predators, “zorn” means finished or destroyed and “hrududu” refers to a motorized vehicle.  The author, Richard Adams, must have spent a lot of time around the little fellows and worked out some of the sounds and meanings, then he added the spelling conveniently in English.
   

     It is a great story, but you do have to wonder if he should have picked a more popular subject, say sports for example.  Every year there is a fresh crop of hockey books.  You couldn’t go wrong writing one.
   

     Now, when I said there were rabbits here, I was of course not speaking of true rabbits. We have the varying hare, which is called a rabbit by everyone from Placentia Bay, Newfoundland to Vancouver Island.  Somehow, the word rabbit is lodged into everyday language.  Recently, I decided to investigate the differences between rabbits and hares.  After all, fishing guides get asked all sorts of questions and need to have a huge, mental collection of information at the ready.  
   

     Apparently, hares are precocial, which means they arrive with eyes open, furred and ready to roll.  Rabbits are born blind and hairless.  Hares are open country types while rabbits vary from making nests on the ground, in weedy patches under a bit of cover, to species like the European rabbit, which make burrows and live communally.  The latter are found in many parts of the world including southern Ontario.
   

     Hares are generally larger and faster runners.  The Arctic hare is one of the largest, weighing up to 15 pounds. That is a lot of rabbit, or hare.  Now, the varying hare, the Arctic hare and some others change colour in the fall and spring; going white for the winter season making it more difficult for a host of rabbit seeking predators to find.  
   

     They say rabbits make good pets, are friendly and can be litter box trained.  Best of all, they are happy eating raw fruits and vegetables.  They need roughage so hay should be on the menu. To keep them off the menu, it might be best to have Rover stay outside, or  get a really big rabbit.  It seems the dwarf breeds are very popular, in which case you need to teach them to climb trees.
   

     You can get a rescue rabbit.  I thought “free rabbit” might be worth investigating.  Well, it’s not exactly free, they spay or neuter them, so that’s about a hundred dollars.  I had a look at the adoption form. They want to know where you work, how many pets you have, how often they visit the vet, what happened to each of your past pets and where the bunny will sleep.
   

     They also want to know what your plans are for vacation.  Seriously, they want to know what you plan to do with Fluffy.  Is she going on vacation, being left with your Iditarod racing nephew and his huskies or enrolled in tap dancing classes?  Curiously, there is no record for anyone taking a pet rabbit on the Iditarod.
   

     Near as I could make out, the paperwork was taken from the child welfare adoption program and ramped up a couple of notches.  Oh, and finally, they want to know how much time each day the rescue rabbit is going to get outside for fresh air and exercise.  I was thinking, all day; maybe coming in at night if it was coolish.
   

     After some consideration it was clear I should be looking to adopt a llama.  It could patrol the grounds, teach the black bears some manners and let the mice and I sleep more peacefully.

Ricky

 

PS
    Incidentally, rabbits are not rodents; they have their own family tree. But you have to wonder if they aren’t related to kangaroos. They might be the pygmy member of the group.  I don’t mean closely related.  You know, sort of second cousins, thrice removed.  
    Have you noticed how second cousins don’t stay in touch?  They often act like they don’t know you. The poor ones are okay, they will chat and visit when you meet them in the hardware store, but the monied ones are a different breed.
    It kind of makes a person mad, because you know the money came from their granddad’s farm.  And worse, you know your granddad had a farm right beside it.  Now, your gran was a mover and shaker; sold his farm because it was hard to get a decent crop from the sandy soil near Peggy’s Cove.  He packed up the family, moved to Toronto and took a factory job. 

     Now, coming from an uncertain income on the farm, he wanted financial security.  He worked until retirement for an outfit making women’s lingerie.  Not the Victoria Secret’s variety; just the regular stuff.  He figured it was secure, and his only sleepless nights were in the 60’s when women were burning their bras.