My poor mom has given up on peas.
Oh, she still likes to eat peas, but she won’t grow any more in her Camano Island garden.
Mom, Yvonne Brayton, is weary of feeding the locals — bunnies that is.
Those cute little rabbits are on a rampage this year, Mom said. They’ve found a way into her garden, surrounded by a fence and chicken wire, to chow down on her sunflowers, green beans, strawberries and lettuce.
“They are so innocent looking, you just want to pick them up and hug them,” Mom said. “But forget about it.”
She turned a hose on two bunnies Monday. They scampered back to the shed where they hide their babies. The babies poke their heads out, Mom said, and are so darling.
Sandy Koffman agrees with my mom about the rabbit explosion.
“We’ve definitely noticed many more bunnies on our wooded property on the ridge of the island,” Hoffman said. “A good part of our property is natural and we see mature and baby bunnies scurrying in and out so we’re sure we have a nest (burrow?) or two.”
Her landscaping is mostly native and her veggies ( in a raised bed) and flowers are in a fenced area patrolled by a friendly pup, Koffman said, so they aren’t seeing too many things being munched.
“Since the focus of our garden is Backyard Wildlife Habitat, we’re actually very happy with the bunny population,” she said. “They’re a welcome addition to our birds, butterflies, bees, squirrels and an occasional deer. A new visitor to our area in the past couple of months is red foxes.”
I asked Scott Chase, Island County Shore Stewards coordinator, about a possible bunny explosion.
“I walked across the parking lot to the county offices here on Camano, and asked around,” Chase said. “The county employees I spoke with have all seen bunnies in their garden or at the side of the road. About a quarter mile north of where I live, on the south end of Camano, there are a dozen or so bunnies that hang out alongside the road, but rarely do they end up being roadkill.”
Chase said with all the eagles and other predators, he is surprised the rabbits haven’t dwindled in number.
“A couple weeks ago, my wife and I were leaving Camano early on a Sunday morning and had one bunny sprint in front of our car. I had to look in my rearview mirror to confirm I didn’t hit it. Not more than a hundred yards later, another one did the same. We’ve only lived here 10 years, and in that time, I have not seen as many as this year.”
Dave Pehling, WSU Extension Snohomish County, said many areas this side of the state have had a large increase in the Eastern cottontail rabbit populations in the past few years. The rabbits were introduced into Washington in the early 1900s as a game animal, he said.
“Cottontails adapt well to human habitation and are very happy to share our yards and gardens with us,” Pehling said. “They attack all sorts of plants, including young trees. I even had damage on a small western red cedar this last winter.”
To keep rabbits out of gardens is a hard task. Mother has a picket fence and chicken wire, but rabbits are able to burrow beneath the fence.
“Repellents of various kinds may work but are only temporary protection, at best,” Pehling said. “Having a loose dog in a fenced yard works pretty well, too, but is not always completely effective.”
My mother’s surviving crop this year is rhubarb. Her rabbits don’t eat rhubarb, but they love to hide under the big green leaves, she said.
For more information about rabbit-resistant plants, visit http://wdfw.wa.gov/wlm/living/rabbits.htm#plants.
Pehling trapped and relocated one rabbit to the other side of a creek on his property.
“He was eating our broccoli starts just as fast as he could,” Pehling said. “Turns out that the mesh size in our fence was too big to keep out rabbits.”
He said he doesn’t mind sharing a bit of broccoli, but does like to harvest some for himself. Under good conditions, each pair of rabbits could produce approximately 18 young during the breeding season, Pehling said.
A small terrier at The Open Gate Farm on Camano interacts with rabbits.
“He chases them to keep them honest, but they have a pact,” owner John Stevens said. “They run fast enough to make him look good and he runs slow enough they don’t worry about losing their tails to his teeth.”
As a result, Stevens said, they are not rabbit free, just rabbit patrolled, and fencing seems to keep them out of the salad bar.
Stevens agreed there are more bunnies on Camano Island this year than last year.
“However there has been a matching increase in the number of bald eagles measuring our chickens for a sandwich,” he said “I suspect the rabbits are now eagle-wise and laying low for the duration. Our poultry sure are. I know our ducks and chickens have all studied up on eagle avoidance strategies. I know because the books they studied are overdue at the library.”
The primary defense for the chickens is to scratch out some of the holes left by the dog when he digs rocks up, Stevens said
“With a rounded out hole serving as a foxhole, the chickens are feeling a lot safer,” Stevens said. “I suspect they are recommending it to the rabbits as well.” Kristi O’Harran: 425-339-3451, oharran@heraldnet.com.
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