Cheap gas may be scarce these days. Along with Chesapeake crabs and oysters. But rabbits, it seems, we have aplenty.
Whether it was a mild winter, or ample spring rain that produced lush summer grass, the furry rodents seem to be having a very productive nesting season this year.
You can see them hunkered down and munching in deep suburban lawns, leaping into the brush ahead of someone's house cat or pooch or, on a bad day, splayed and still on the asphalt.
FOR THE RECORD
An article in Monday's Maryland section incorrectly described rabbits as rodents. Until the early 20th century, they were considered rodents. But no more. Among other distinguishing traits, rabbits have four upper incisors, while rodents have two. Rabbits are part of a separate order of mammals called Lagomorpha, which includes hares and pikas.
The Sun regrets the error.
"I take my beagles out to train them maybe two mornings a week, and there's bunnies around. We've been seeing young rabbits. It's been a successful nesting season," said Tom Mathews, 57, a retired wildlife biologist and rabbit hunter in Cumberland.
Whether it has been extraordinarily so is debatable. Given half a chance, rabbits have always been a prolific species.
"It's just the rabbits doing their thing," said Bob Beyer, associate director of the Department of Natural Resources' Wildlife and Heritage Service. "If you're gonna see a lot of rabbits, this is the time. It's breeding season, and they'll nest and re-nest, and you'll see a lot of young around."
Rabbits can't afford not to. Eastern cottontails live for only nine or 10 months. They'll nest and raise a brood, then nest once or twice more if they can. And their young may mature and add grandbabies to the population before the season is out.
Left alone, they would overrun the landscape. But hardly anyone leaves them alone, Mathews said.
"There's a lot of predation. Hawks, owls, foxes, skunks, raccoons. Some people call them [rabbits] the Big Mac of the food chain," he said.
Coyotes, and especially domestic cats and dogs, do their share to keep the rabbit population in check, too. So do people, although pressure from human hunters is not a significant factor, and it's becoming less so.
During the 2000-2001 hunting season, DNR licensed 12,646 rabbit hunters who took out 66,647 rabbits. Five years later, there were half as many hunters, who spent less time per capita in the field. Their harvest was 52 percent lower, at just 34,467 rabbits.
"Small game hunting in Maryland has been on the decline," Mathews said. "The primary factor for that is the change in habitat across the state."
Three or four decades ago, abandoned farmland offered abundant brushy cover and hedgerows - ideal rabbit habitat, he said. But "as farms reverted back to woodland, much of that brushy cover was lost. ... The opportunity for a place to hunt rabbits has been reduced significantly."
