Expert: Jonathan Wright - 11/8/2004

Question
hey how are ya? i need to know everything you know about "european wild rabbits"!!! thanks heaps

Answer
Dear Dalia

Thanks for your question. I have looked up various websites for information about European wild rabbits, using 'Oryctolagus cuniculus' in Google. I find that using scientific names in Google gets me more serious information than just using common names, where I would have got a lot of information about domestic rabbits. I have put the information under different headings, so that it will be easier for you to find the information you require. If I had given you everything i know about rabbits, some of this may have been confused, as my memory isn't perfect. In 1992 I went on a walk in Kent, southeast England and saw hundreds of rabbits in a few fields, more than I have seen in the rest of my life. I don't know why there were so many concentrated there, but obviously the habitat is ideal for rabbits.
  
Classification: The European or Old World rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) belongs to the Family Leporidae (rabbits and hares), one of two living families in the Order Lagomorpha. Lagomorphs differ from rodents, because they have two pairs of upper incisors; the second smaller incisors are behind the first.

Geographic Range: The last Ice Age confined the rabbit to southwest Europe, as well as small areas of France and northwest Africa. Human action and the rabbits' own adaptability has led to the rabbit extending its range. Rabbits were often introduced by Acclimatisation Societies and now exist in the wild on every continent except Asia and Antarctica, while domesticated rabbits are found worldwide. The rabbit was introduced to Great Britain during the Twelfth century AD by the Normans.

Habitat: Rabbits are highly adaptable and thrive best where rainfalls are less than 1000 mm and where the vegetation is short, preferably grazed. They prefer to live in dry savanna or grassland areas near sea level, with hedgrows and loose, soft, sandy soil for easy burrowing and because it provides free drainage. They use scrub or rocks as cover. They prefer brushy fields, as these provide cover, but rabbits also live in forests, shrubland, deserts and disturbed areas. They tend to avoid coniferous woodlands, damp areas, and very rarely occur above the tree line Rabbits were abundant on cultivated land, but modern ploughing techniques  destroy rabbit burrows. Rabbits have learned to coexist with humans in cities in central Europe. They make their homes in parks, cemeteries, gardens and lawns. The spread of agriculture and other human activities have often helped rabbits to colonize new areas.

Physical Description: Weight: 1-7 kg, usually 1.0-2.5 kg. Length: 38-55 cm with a 4.5-7 cm tail. The coat is generally greyish or grey-brown, with black and brown, and sometimes red, sprinkled throughout. The fur ranges from sandy yellow to totally black. The underside of the body is paler gray or white-grey, and the underside of the tail is white. Rabbits have smaller ears and shorter, less powerful legs than hares do. Males (bucks) and females (does) look similar, but males tend to weigh more and have slightly broader heads.

Behaviour: Rabbits tend to be active during the evening and night, but become more active by day in areas where they are undisturbed by humans. They live in groups of one pair up to 30 individuals, inside burrow systems called 'warrens'. Only females burrow. There are two distinct hierarchies within a warren, one amongst bucks, the other amongst does. An individual's status is set while play-fighting as a young rabbit. Fighting may occur between two males over a receptive doe. Both sexes show scent marking, or 'chinning', using the scent glands underneath the chin. It is more frequent in males than females and reinforces the social ranking of an individual. Rabbits are very alert mammals, with a keen sense of smell. When feeding, they periodically rear up on their back legs to look for danger. They warn other rabbits of danger by thumping their back legs on the ground and raising the white tail. These signals make other rabbits bolt back to the safety of the warren

Reproduction: Rabbits can reproduce all-year-round, with the reproductive cycle mainly modulated by day length and nutrition. Most breeding activity occursfrom January-August. In the breeding season, rabbits may form territorial groups made up of one to three males with up to seven females, led by a dominant pair. After breeding, the groups break up again, except for the dominant pair. Mating in rabbits is generally promiscuous, though males will try to monopolize particular females. During courtship, males chase females and spray them with urine. Mating lasts a few seconds, but is repeated frequently while the female is receptive. Males take no part in the care of the young. One reason for the reproductive success of rabbits is induced ovulation, where mating causes eggs to be released. Rabbit placentae allow an unusually high degree of contact between maternal and foetal bloodstreams.

A litter of 2-7 blind, helpless, naked young (kittens) are born after a pregnancy of 30 days and there may be one litter a month. The young are born in a nest lined with fur from the mother's belly. There may be 18-30 young per female adult per year. Females go into heat after giving birth, so may have several litters per year. Spontaneous abortions and resorption of embryos are common, perhaps due to environmental or social stresses.  The mother visits the nest for only a few minutes each day to nurse them, but the milk is extremely rich. The young are weaned at four weeks. Females become sexually mature at 3.5 months and can breed at 3 months old, while males become sexually mature at 4 months old. Rabbits can live to nine years old. However, over 90% of rabbits may die in the first year of life.

Food Habits: Rabbits are generalized herbivores, eating a diverse diet of grasses and other herbaceous vegetation, leaves, buds, tree bark, and roots. They dig below grasses to reach roots and seeds and can strip off bark or even climb trees and shrubs to reach succulent leaves and twigs, especially in areas where no water is readily available. Rabbits also eat lettuce, cabbage, root vegetables, and grains. They need a diet of less than 40% fibre, 10-20% protein for maintenance and 14% protein for reproduction. They can be selective. The diet is relatively low in nutritional value, and high in indigestible material. However, rabbits reingest their faeces (coprophagy) to obtain extra nourishment from their food. The rabbit has a very large caecum, where bacteria  ferment otherwise indigestible material occurs. Periodically, the rabbits void and eat the contents of the caecum. They may depend on this for some essential nutrients, which are released or produced by bacteria and absorbed on this second passage through the digestive system. Rabbits are preyed upon by a wide variety of carnivores, including dogs, foxes, cats, mink, stoats, polecats,badgers, weasels, buzzards, hawks and owls.

Economic Importance for Humans: Rabbits are agricultural pests in many areas, especially where their natural predators have been eliminated. They eat cultivated crops and compete with domestic animals for forage. They also inflict enormous ecological damage in some areas. They may cause serious erosion of soils by overgrazing and  burrowing. Rabbit grazing is essential to preserve calcareous grasslands and various other threatened habitats. When rabbit numbers crashed, large blue butterflies and other species suffered greatly as they depend on rabbit grazing for the maintenance of their habitats. Rabbits loosen soil when they burrow, which can help some plants and animals, while some animals live in abandoned rabbit burrows.

Rabbits compete with native wildlife for food and shelter, and contribute to a decline in the numbers of many native plants and animals. They can also enhance negative impacts on native species by supporting large populations of predators such as cats and foxes. They cause extensive erosion through browsing and loss of plant cover and often destroy the habitat of many small animals.  They damage vegetation and degrade the land. They ringbark trees and shrubs, and prevent regeneration by eating seeds and seedlings. Their impact often increases during drought and immediately after fire, when food is scarce and they eat whatever they can.

Millions of pounds are spent annually to control, confine or exterminate rabbits. Rabbits are hunted and raised for meat, skins and wool. They are kept as pets and are used in medical research and to test the safety of chemicals and consumer products. Most rabbits are abundant, but a variety found on islands in the Atlantic and Mediterranean may be at risk.

Rabbits were popular game animals and food sources, so people introduced them widely around the world. Rabbits spread through much of the Mediterranean world in Roman times and through much of Europe during the Middle Ages. Rabbits have been domesticated and bred for over 1000 years. The hopping gait, long mobile ears and short 'bob-tail' have endeared rabbits to children and adults alike and domesticated rabbits are popular pets. During the Age of Exploration, rabbits were left on hundreds of islands for food for later voyages. They usually died out, but some survived on islands and often damaged island ecologies. Sailing ships in the 18th and 19th century sometimes carried live rabbits for food.

In the 19th and early 20th century, Acclimatisation Societies in Australia and New Zealand brought rabbits from Great Britain in an attempt to transplant the mother country to the new colonial frontier. In New Zealand rabbits have survived in low numbers on a few forested islands where the forest is low and not very dense.
The first rabbits were brought to Australia in the late 1700s, but spread widely in 1850. By 1900, there were 20 million rabbits in a range of 1600 km, limited only by lack of water. They became a serious threat to agriculture, mainly by competing for food with sheep and cattle. People tried to control them, including the large-scale use of poison baits, but many rabbit predators were poisoned. Rabbits compete with various Australian mammals, some of which have become extinct. Rabbits have also  contributed to the decline in numbers of many native plants and animals and may threaten colonies of seabirds. Rabbits devastate plant communities, with denuded landscapes being subject to increased erosion, leading to habitat destruction.

Management options include fencing, trapping, warren ripping, baiting, fumigating and biological control with myxomatosis, rabbit calicivirus disease (in wetter areas) and fleas. Shooting is an inefficient method of control, but does not kill predators of rabbits. Removing other grazing animals will often result in the growth of rank vegetation unsuitable for rabbits. This can be used to control rabbits.

People introduced the disease myxomatosis into rabbit populations in the 1950s. Myxomatosis is caused by a virus endemic to South American rabbits, which have some immunity to it. When European rabbits were first exposed to the virus, some populations were virtually wiped out. In 1953 the virus killed 99% of the British rabbit population. There is now some resistance and fewer rabbits die from the virus. Rabbit haemorrhagic disease (RHD) was first identified in British rabbits in 1994. The survivors gradually became more resistant, but this immunity weakens over time in the absence of the virus. Some rabbit populations have been reduced by more than 90%, while remaining populations are periodically ravaged by new epidemics of the virus. Myxomatosis has not eradicated the rabbits, but has greatly diminished their numbers.

This is not everything there is to know about rabbits. Books have been written about them, as they are one of the most successful species of mammals and have a huge impact on the environment and on national economies. I hope that I have given you enough information to interest you about rabbits.

All the best

Jonathan