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Is there a rabbit population cycle?
I mean a cycle where they breed like mad for a year then die off to virtually nothing?
The reason I ask is the permission I was on 20 years ago was crawling with rabbits (100 an hour at night no problem) and now theres virtually none. The farmer says they come and go in cycles but he's never bothered working the cycles out.
I was just wondering if there is a natural cycle for this?
Anyone into bunny cycles?

Probably due to the various diseases that they are prone to, like Mixy.
Populations will increase rapidly due to their high reproductive rate. Then they get overcrowded and disease spreads quickly, particularly transmitted by fleas. This kills off lots of the rabbits, leaving only the strong and those immune to the disease to start the cycle again.
Triffid

Triffid wrote:Probably due to the various diseases that they are prone to, like Mixy.
Populations will increase rapidly due to their high reproductive rate. Then they get overcrowded and disease spreads quickly, particularly transmitted by fleas. This kills off lots of the rabbits, leaving only the strong and those immune to the disease to start the cycle again.
Triffid

Yes, thats what the farmer says. I suppose theres not a definitive (say 3 year) cycle then? It will depend on if and when disease breaks out?

in my experience locally, some of the new strains are decimating the population as soon as they get above a visible number, ie as soon as you can see any number out in the fields the disease cycle starts again and they disappear!
traditionally Mixy was associated with bad/wet weather forcing the rabbits to congregate underground.
I suspect it was always dictated by the population size and weather.

That's been my experience, with rabbit populations booming and busting.
As well as Myxy, there also viral hemorrhagic disease (VHD) . . . again spread by close contact in overcrowded burrows.
Triffid

The haemorrhage disease has all but wiped out the rabbit population in my part of Scotland, it came in at the back end around three years ago and over night the rabbits were gone.

There are still a few but they are wary as the feral cats are plentiful and slaughter the young at will.

I have been killing the feral cats at every chance I can get to help the rabbits re-establish a bit more. Interestingly a lot of these feral cats have collars and bells on them. I wonder if they are part of some research project.

Still the bells are good as it makes them easier to locate for shooting.

Many members of this family have population cycles. The classic example, which has been much studied, is the Snowshoe Hare in Canada which has an approximate ten year cycle. There are a number of things that drive this cycle in the wild and, but, as alluded to by the comments about Myxy, when humans get involved, that can disrupt these natural cycles significantly.

For anyone who's interested in reading around this, there have been dozens of papers published on these hares. e.g. https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/art ... /25/251849. It's not a bad summary of how this can work and, for the devotee, there are some good references for further reading if you want to know more.

Cheers,

Denis (I'm a wildlife biologist but don't work with rabbits directly so not in any way expert on this question).