Posted on 02/24/2008 8:47:35 AM PST by george76
A jackrabbit found throughout much of the West has disappeared from the Yellowstone area, although the reason why remains a mystery, a new study concludes.
Whatever the cause, the study suggests the white-tailed jackrabbit's disappearance has wrought major changes to Yellowstone's food chain.
Coyotes and wolves, which could have depended on the rabbit as a significant food source, apparently turned their attention instead to larger prey including young elk, pronghorn antelope -- even domestic livestock.
However, because the rabbit's decline went relatively unnoticed until now, quantifying that shift is virtually impossible, said the study's lead author, Joel Berger with the Wildlife Conservation Society.
The white-tailed jackrabbit -- also known as the prairie hare -- was once a common sight in and around Yellowstone National Park...
Berger's study, appearing in the latest issue of the scientific journal Oryx, tells of one inhabitant of the region encountering "jillions" of the animals near Yellowstone as late as the 1930s.
Yet by the middle of the century, sightings within the 23,000 square mile Yellowstone region grew increasingly rare. That area includes portions of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.
Only three have been spotted by scientists since 1991 -- all in Grand Teton National Park...
(Excerpt) Read more at jacksonholestartrib.com ...
Used to hunt rabbits (actually, "Artic Hares") up here in Alaska with a Mini-14 using 5.56 mm (also known as .223 Remington); I typically used a full-metal jacketed boat-tail round (I loaded my own ammo back then). However I had to refill my magazine one time and inadvertantly "topped it off" with some hollow point rounds. Next time I shot, I "cleaned & gutted" the bunny at the same time...
What did they expectwhren they reintroduced wolves? And the cougar population is growing as well.
You didn't post the hare-brained money quote:
Berger said wildlife managers should consider reintroducing the jackrabbit to Yellowstone and Grand Teton. He said that would allow scientists to recreate "bottom-up" relationships between predators and their prey that were effectively lost when the animal vanished.<\/i>
Keeping track of the jackrabbits will give wildlife "managers" something to do at taxpayer expense after area ranchers have shot all the wolves.
Another reason to hunt the wolves : save the bunnies.
“The wolves wiped them out”
They were gone before the wolves were reintroduced.
It's not a mystery. They just don't want to admit that it is their own fault.
Environmental groups will rage on and on about this or that business activity being the cause of some negative environmental effect, no matter how low the probability of it being true. But no "environmental group" will ever concede that a negative effect was caused by an environmental group's attempt to fix things.
LOL
I think you've gotten your wish. I hear that the Canadian Wolves they've been trying to establish in the Northern Woods in Maine have been spotted in NY state. That's not the official view, of course, just like 'officially' the only mountain lions in PA are "escaped pets"...
Ummmm, bring a breeding pain in to Yellowstone - they’ll breed like rabbits.
All those govt-introduced wolves thought the jackrabbits were simply lip-smacking tasty and finished off the population. Whatever was stressing their numbers before, the wolves were most likely the final blow..... and since the lil’ critters had no knowledge or fear of wolves now, they probably didn’t last long......
Willing to bet I could find jackrabbits in Yellowstone
Yum!
In the 1960-61 the Air Force was building Titan I missile sites out on the Lowry Bombing Range east of Denver. The area teemed with wildlife. The contractors worked 24/7 and some of the workers had pretty poor judgment about the “cute” little animals, feeding them leftovers from their lunches. At one site a coyote got pretty brazen, and one worker from back east somewhere took to holding out a sandwich in his hand for the coyote to eat. He forgot that the coyote, regardless how tame he appeared, was a wild animal that was raised in the wild. One evening when he held out the sandwich, he attempted to pet the coyote with his other hand. Big mistake! The coyote bit the guy and the guy spent the rest of the shift at the emergency room getting stitched up, and the next several weeks undergoing rabies shots.
I wondered about that too. Rabbits are basically walking dinner for any predator who wants one - they must have some survival skill beyond ability to reproduce... who knows?
Lets not split hares.
The ground is heating up too much. That’s what did it.
Using my best Elmer Fudd voice “ Kill the wabbit, Kill the Wabbit”, “ Oooh, I hate4 dat wabbit”!
My Democrat neighbor has one of those in his bed.
... it was the Burmese Pythons!
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