As I type this, a young rabbit is sitting on the grass, about ten feet away looking at me through the open window out of his right eye. My yard, most of June and July, has had a half-dozen rabbits in it at any time. I’ve never seen as many as there are this year. Previous generations of farmers who lived here would have shot this particular rabbit immediately, or their dogs would have run it down and eaten it. But, I have no dogs or cats, and the rabbits have multiplied. This young rabbit has no idea how lucky it is.
It, and its parents, are alive not through anything they’ve done to defend themselves. They owe their lives to a local trapper who has literally wiped out all the foxes and coyotes within a mile, and the hawks seem to have disappeared. Past generations of Americans were raised in similar safety. Those who would prey on us were kept away by the most powerful armies, navies, and air force in the history of the world.
In the first part of last summer, I had a lot of rabbits, too, though not as many as this year. Then, they began to disappear. Suddenly, there were none around during the day. I wondered what happened to them until, one morning, I went outside early and a large owl took flight from the top of the garage. It had been showing up in the evening, and had, in a couple of weeks of nights, picked off nearly every rabbit, silently swooping down on them in the night with claws as sharp as nails.
