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Tons of mini-buns outside Allston firehouse
By adamg on Tue, 05/30/2017 - 11:51pm
Kat Kirpatrick holds a baby rabbit outside the Union Square fire station today, reports she put it back down.
Sean Olson, a firefighter at the station, reports:
They're the second family living here. The first ones were on the Brighton Ave side in the beginning of April pic.twitter.com/it22tvz2sy
— Sean Olson (@SOlsonBFDL14) May 31, 2017
Those have been there for a few weeks. We temporarily relocated them when we cleaned up their "home". We've seen the mother a few times pic.twitter.com/R3UJZ2nQ8R
— Sean Olson (@SOlsonBFDL14) May 31, 2017
And, of course, these are hardly the only bunsters in all of Allston/Brighton:
They're everywhere! Brighton, 7:15pm tonight. It's the "Great Bunny Takeover of 2017" pic.twitter.com/Q540PdEuhx
— Chuck Nowlin (@ChuckNowlinWZLX) May 31, 2017
My Brighton backyard. They're breeding like...... pic.twitter.com/CzquOkwTz3
— (@PlunkettPrime) May 31, 2017
Free tagging:
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Comments
Allston Bun City
time for a rebrand?
Adorable!
Probably shouldn't be picking up wild rabbits
Cute picture and no offense to Kat, but I believe wildlife shouldn't have too much human contact and cuddling. Many friends on our Environmental Police have told me that human contact can reduce the animal's natural defense mechanisms not to mention risk of disease to both sides. Leave them be.
Baby rabbits are...
... especially easily stressed and the trauma of being handled by humans, however gentle and well meaning, can kill them.
Human scent on a kit (baby rabbit/bunny)
will often cause it's mom to abandon it. When picking up wild animal "babies" (which you really shouldn't do), gloves should be worn.
Not quite true. But that
Not quite true. But that doesn't make it right either.
Looks like the mother already
Looks like the mother already abandoned the ones being kept in that tall cardboard box. WTF???
Guessing not
Mom's gotta eat too. It's pretty common, when babies get old enough that they won't absolutely die instantly if mom's not around, she stashes them somewhere and goes to find food for herself. I've got a great picture of a black bear that did this in my maple tree, but IHNC how to put pictures in Uhub comments.
Actually, no.
Many people believe that but the mom does not care if it is scented by human hands or not. Needless to say, one should not pick up baby bunnies cause they are cute. It will get stressed out as it thinks you are going to kill it.
Are their natural predators
Are their natural predators scarce lately?
Bring up the holy hand grenade!
Bring up the holy hand grenade!
Unfortunately the rabbits do
Unfortunately the rabbits do not have many predators in dense urban areas. These rabbits are Eastern cottontails which are not native to our area. Their population is exploding over the past 4-5 years and anybody that has roses or other perennials during the winter has seen the damage these rabbits can do. They literally strip the bark off of anything they can get to. Red Tail Hawks and Coyotes are their primary predators but they are few and far between in the city. These baby rabbits are ready to reproduce after 9 weeks and rabbits can produce 2-3 litters a year. They may look cute in the box but any gardener in the Back Bay Fens can tell you that rabbits are more than a cute nuisance.
Hawks
in JP I've been hearing the cry of at least one hawk. I love it - may it feed well.
We have a ton of red tails in JP
especially up in Franklin Park, but I doubt they can keep up with the buns--they're already pretty occupied keeping the squirrel population in check.
Please
I want them to go after rats!
hawks
We used to have a lot of hawks in East Cambridge, but I heard that a lot of them were poisoned because of the rats being poisoned. We have a ton of bunnies around now too.
Coyote numbers seem to be growing
I had one run in front of me on Soldiers Field Rd. a few weeks ago with what looked like a rabbit in its mouth. It came from the Harvard athletic fields and ran towards the river. Fortunately it was about 6:30AM, so traffic was still relatively light.
I've also seen a coyote on Raymond St in Allston multiple times, but that was a year or two ago.
Other than my cat?
Well, raccoons might raid a nest, and foxes and coyotes like them, but there is an explosion of them that built over the last couple of years.
Yeah, cats
Cats are hell on little bunnies, but mostly leave full-grown rabbits alone. The big ones can defend themselves.
Keep your hands off the wild
Keep your hands off the wild animals. You are not in a Disney movie.
Citation needed
.
I did a little research when
I did a little research when I found a nest of baby rabbits in one of my flower gardens last year right by the door. The doe's (mother rabbit) milk is so rich that the babies only feed twice per day. The doe does not spend a lot of time directly with the babies to avoid drawing predators to the nest. She will be in the somewhere nearby although not obviously so. So you should leave them be for sure. They don't do well being reared by humans but human contact/activity won't cause the doe to abandon them. In fact, if a nest is in the middle of your lawn, for example, you can recreate it in a safe area and the doe will find them.
Rabbits on Fort Hill, a new thing
In our backyard on Fort Hill, we had two different rabbits loitering about. Now, three weeks later, we have small bunnies, too. I've never seen rabbits in this neighborhood before.
I understand everyone's concern for the wildlife...
...And under normal circumstances I would ~not~ have touched it.
This particular baby rabbit was crouched in the gutter at the bus stop. Next bus pulling up to pick up/drop off passengers might have crushed it. Or the bunny might have scurried away in plenty of time. Nobody knows.
The person with me noticed the rest of the babies nearby, so I scooped it up, got a quick photo and put it back down away from traffic and closer to the rest of the family. The whole thing from start to finish was three minutes or less. I don't think that would be long enough to stress it out that much. Plus...that's a fairly busy location. I doubt I'm the first person to touch it or its littermates, and I'm unlikely to be the last, either.
Do I think I saved it's life? In the short term, yes, as the aforementioned bus pulled up not long after that. In the long term, probably not. It'll get run over by another car or bus. Or get eaten by a hawk. Or savaged by a cat or stray dog. Or those gigantic rats that Allston is famous for.
I've seen plenty of other wildlife in the area that I haven't touched, photographed, or mentioned to anyone...I just had the opportunity to do this one critter a small kindness and had someone get a pic of the cute critter in the process.
Thank You, Kat, For Filling In The Missing First-Person Details!
( it's one of the greatest things about Universal Hub! )