Save the Easter bunny
Baby rabbits nibbling at meadow edges make endearing scenes across lowland Britain, or they did until recent years. Our rabbit population is under threat – so much so that conservationists are building ‘hotels’ to protect the species, reports Amy-Jane Beer
Our lane is bunny central. Arriving after dusk, you will almost always see between one and two dozen lolloping, furry forms in the space of 100 metres. They are regulars in the garden, and one morning I came down to my study to find a youngster camped under a bookcase.
Not everyone is a fan – farmers, foresters and horticulturists object to thievery – but at this time of year, only the stoniest heart can fail to soften at the sight of pompom babies (known as kits or kittens) relishing their first experience of sunshine: stubby ears pricked, noses twitching, eyes wide.
Not only are rabbits survivors and opportunists with complex societies and a famously fecund reproductive strategy evolved to counter heavy predation, but our countryside and culture would not be the same without them. Yet their numbers are dramatically down in many areas of the UK. Could they become a rare sight?
Our resident wild rabbits are not native, prehistoric populations having died out before Britain was islanded by rising seas. Rabbits were introduced more than once – first by the Romans, who kept them captive, and then in much greater numbers in the 12th century. Originally farmed on o shore islands or in enclosures known as warrens or coneygarths, they subsequently escaped or were released to populate the wider countryside. It seems they remained relatively scarce in the wild until the late 1700s, when intensification of agriculture created much easier conditions for them.
By the early to mid-20th century, the population had become pestilential.
These days, however, the situation is more complex. Rabbit populations naturally undergo cycles of boom and bust in response to environmental conditions and predator numbers, but since the 1950s these fluctuations have been exaggerated and most crashes are the result of disease. Living in close proximity, sharing burrows where airborne pathogens and parasites can easily be transferred, rabbits are particularly prone to contagion.
FIRST PLAGUE
The viral disease myxomatosis was introduced to Britain in 1953 in an apparently deliberate and certainly ill-advised attempt at biological control. Myxomatosis kills slowly by way of lesions that render the animal blind and unable to feed or breathe properly. The rabbit population at the time was estimated at around 100 million. Within a year or so, 99% were dead.
There were knock-on effects. Predators, including foxes, polecats, wildcats, buzzards and tawny owls, took a hit. Stoats suffered a 90% decline and extinction in some areas, and it was almost the nail in the co n of Britain’s last few red kites. Without rabbits to graze our downlands, grass grew long and scrub encroached, stifling wildflowers and causing conspicuous declines in butterfly species such as the silver spotted skipper, dark green fritillary, chalkhill and Adonis blue, and the national extinction of the large blue.
NEW KILLER
Over ensuing decades, rabbits developed partial resistance to myxomatosis, and about 40% of those infected now survive. By the mid 1990s, numbers had recovered to an estimated 37 million.
Rabbits are popular prey for a number of predators, including buzzards 
To hide from predators and shelter from harsh weather, European rabbits dig underground burrow systems called warrens. Shorter, non-branching burrows are known as stops
In 1994, another threat arrived on UK shores: rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus (RHDV), first described in China 10 years earlier. It was followed in 2010 by a new form, RHDV2, sending rabbit populations into another steep decline. RHD viruses cause extensive internal bleeding and death, often in less than 36 hours. They are untreatable and, like myxomatosis, remain circulating in the population.
Under the twin onslaught of myxomatosis and the RHD viruses, rabbit numbers fell by 64% nationally between 1996 and 2018, with some areas, such as the East Midlands, losing as many as 88% of the population (according to data gathered as part of the British Trust for Ornithology’s Breeding Bird Survey, which also covered mammals). The current decline is severe enough that conservationists are concerned – not only for the rabbits, but also for other longassociated species.
LITTLE BREEDERS: CULLING RABBITS
The feeding habits of rabbits are expensive. By 1950, crops damage was estimated at around £50 million a year, equivalent to over £1.8 billion in 2022. They hamper woodland regeneration, damage sport facilities and gardens, and their burrows damage flood defences and pose a risk to running horses. Recent declines mean that the scale of damage is nothing like it was (in 2009 it was about £115 million), but it remains the responsibility of landowners to prevent rabbits on their land causing damage to adjoining crops. This can be done by fencing or lethal control using nets, snares and spring traps, gas, ferrets or by shooting.
Deliberate introduction of a lethal disease has never been a legal means of rabbit control in the UK. Indefinite cycles of suffering are unacceptable on ethical grounds and, if nothing else, represent an astonishing waste of a healthy meat that has been valued for 1,000 years.
BUNNIES OF THE BRECKS
Rabbits have long been central to the character of the East Anglian Brecks. The area’s relatively dry climate and sandy soils are reminiscent of the species’ original Mediterranean habitat and, being unsuited to arable agriculture, made the perfect place for warrening. Long before it came to mean a system of burrows where rabbits live wild, the word ‘warren’ meant an enclosure where rabbits were reared for meat and, to a lesser extent, fur. This practice lasted 800 years – long after rabbits became established in the wider countryside. Rabbit grazing di ers from that by sheep; they crop close but are light-footed enough not to damage the bases of tiny plants or crush lichens that form a key part of the Breckland tapestry.
The Brecklands of East Anglia – known as the Brecks – comprise 370 square miles (960 sq km) of heath, grassland and forest straddling the Norfolk-Su olk border. And far from doing damage, rabbits are essential here. By burrowing, grazing and scrabbling, they create and maintain open areas of short turf and small bare patches where light and warmth reach the soil. They keep competitive grasses from forming a dense mat and create perfect conditions for basking invertebrates and reptiles (adders and common lizards thrive here), and for ground and burrow-breeders, from stone curlew to solitary wasps, whose eggs and young need warmth to develop.
Their digging uproots some plants but provides opportunities for others to germinate and grow. The result is a spectacular diversity of mostly small plants, including national and global rarities, which in turn support a huge range of invertebrate life. Current records put diversity of this remarkable habitat mosaic at around 13,000 species. The loss of rabbits here posed an imminent threat to a wide range of plants and animals.
The recently concluded Shifting Sands project – active from 2017 to 2021 – was designed to protect the rabbits of the Brecklands. It is one of around 20 Back from the Brink projects set up in response to the extinction crisis facing many British animals, plants and fungi. Funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, Shifting Sands partners included Natural England, the University of East Anglia, the Forestry Commission, Norfolk Wildlife Trust and Plantlife. Between them, these agencies took steps to reduce tree cover, create wildlife corridors, reintroduce rarities and stabilise the rabbit population.
Built of heaped branches and twigs, rabbit’s hotel offer sanctuary to young females and their offspring, who are at risk in an overcrowded colony 
A pregnant doe collects grass to line her burrow in advance of her kits; arrival
There is little anyone can do about myxomatosis or RHDV2, but other risks, such as predation, can be addressed. So-called habitat enhancement plots or ‘rabbit hotels’ were established around several warrens. The hotels are simply heaps of brash – branches and twiggy material that provide shelter from foxes and birds of prey – and also offer opportunities for warren expansion.
The hotels help address the rabbits’ response to threat, which has evolved to protect the group’s long-term viability. (Look away now if you’re squeamish.) Most warrens have matriarchs who regulate population density by killing or evicting the helpless young of subordinate females from overcrowded burrows. Giving these younger females safe places to excavate their own starter homes can increase the capacity of the warren – and keep young safe from matriarchs. And that’s where the rabbit hotels come in.
The project gained enthusiastic community support, even from local veg grower Elveden Estate. A small industrial estate adjacent to one of the Forestry Commission sites has become a County Wildlife Site and Roadside Nature Reserve, and a team of volunteers is determined to keep improvements going now that formal work is finished. One legacy of Shifting Sands is an advice toolkit created to help nature-friendly Breckland landowners create and maintain more hotels as needed.
RISING FORTUNES
After five years, several species are better o . The super-rare prostrate perennial knawel, a plant occurring only in the Brecks, had been reduced to just seven known specimens across three sites. At the last count there were 201. There have been heartening increases in basil thyme, spring speedwell, purple milk vetch, field wormwood and highest-ever recorded numbers of the specialist nocturnal insect that depends on it, the sublimely named wormwood moonshiner beetle. Other rare insects benefitting from an uptick include lunar yellow underwing moths and the five-banded tailed digger wasp.
The Brecks are a standout example of rabbit ecosystem engineering, but not the only one. These familiar mammals play a role in maintaining specialist communities on downland and roadside verges, they provide food for carnivores and scavengers of all sizes – and if you eat meat, they are a source of high-welfare, free-range protein for the table. To regard them solely as pests may show a distinct lack of imagination.
Amy-Jane Beer is a biologist, naturalist and writer based in North Yorkshire. She regards access to diverse nature as a human right. Her next book, The Flow, is published in August.