Rabbit Chronicles Continue

I caught a second rabbit in the Havahart trap. After weeks of seeing the trap open and the bait untouched, he was there one morning, trapped inside.

Our rabbit looked like this, only more scared

We covered the cage to calm him and then took him to the dump. Not the actual dump, but to the grounds surrounding the transfer station outside of town, where there is wide open scrubland and no houses around.

The reality is that releasing a rabbit into unfamiliar territory where it has no familiar safety routes to find sure cover is a death sentence. The coyotes or bobcats will find him. So my Havahart system isn't really very humane. I'm sure the rabbit will not survive out there.

He's out there somewhere, unless the coyotes found him already

But Jim argues that it is humane, or at least natural. His position is that the natural order of things is for rabbits to be dinner for coyotes. The unnatural order of things is for rabbits to live unmolested lives on fat pickings inside a protected courtyard garden. 

There is nothing natural about my gardens. I may not use synthetic fertilizers, I may use organic "natural" solutions, I may try to attract native pollinators and local birds, but I am choosing which wildlife I will tolerate and which plants to favor. I am constantly selecting, eliminating, and dictating who and what survives in my little world. It's not a natural environment in any way. 

It is pretty, though. It exists for me. And it exists as well for some bugs I choose and for some birds I like (not pigeons, god no, not pigeons) and for whatever creature or plant I want. The bad bugs I try to eliminate and the hungry herbivores I discourage.

Not a natural state of affairs for a wild rabbit

It's not a natural environment for a rabbit, and even though a rabbit's natural state is one of peril and short life, that's the way of it.

Boy am I feeling guilty about this trapping business. Can you tell?