Annihilating rabbits!!!!!!
Hi, I just found this board tonight and I've got a problem that I'm at my wit's end with....I don't really do much hunting or trapping except to remove nusiance animals (squirrels, rabbits, oppossum) but as of late I've run up against "Moby Bunny". Let me explain. I live on a little over an acre of land, wooded (I have neighbors and technically I'm in a residential area so there are limits on what I can do...). There are squirrels aplenty and if they really start on my bird feeders I can get them in live traps and then take them a few miles away to the county park; however - this past spring I had a rabbit issue.....I watched in fury as hundreds of dollars worth of landscaping I put in was mowed to the ground and died because of the furry little suckers....
So I got some rabbit lure, set some cage traps and went out night after night with an air rifle...I got lucky and nailed the doe (found out she had a bunch of progeny waiting to erupt on the scene) but there are more.....wily, crafty ones worthy of Captain Ahab's enemy (luckily they can't bite my legs off!!)...I have diligently baited 4 cage traps night after night (especially when it rains as that's when I tend to see more of them) and gone prowling around with the rifle and flashlight, taking aim and firing (I'm a pretty good shot but at night with only a flashlight, and it's really hard to get close enough to get a good aim), only to see one gleefully hopping away[:@].
I've followed all the instructions on using the lure, I've chopped a million apples and carrots, moved the traps around and still I can't get the little stinker!!! I can't fence my property either - don't have the $$$ and it would look terrible - not only that the hyacinth-munching monsters drive my dog crazy (I'd love to let him off the lead as I'm sure he could run them down easily - he's a lab/dane mix but then I'd be out all night trying to catch him - and there is a main highway a few hundred feet away with my luck he'd go down there and get hit...)
So......does anyone have any suggestions on how I can rid my property of the furry plague? I've thought about using conibear-type traps (since the 'wascawy wabbit' doesn't cotton to my cage traps) but I don't want to kill birds or the stray cat that lives under my shed (or any other non-target animal) and put a few next to the daffodils and hyacinths next spring...but I'd like to get rid of them NOW.
R. Lee