Wildkaninchen Wales

The European rabbit prefers open and half-open landscapes with loose, easily diggable soils. Sandy heathland and dune habitats, light pine forests, military training areas, railway and road embankments, and former gravel pits are all typical habitats. As a pronounced cultural follower it also regularly settles in urban parks, cemeteries, green spaces, and gardens inside the cities, where, unlike on open farmland, it can often be observed during the day as well. Dense forests and heavy, waterlogged soils are avoided because the species cannot dig its characteristic burrows there.

In contrast to the solitary brown hare, which is born as a precocial young in an open Sasse, the Wildkaninchen is a sociable nest dweller. It lives in colonies of several adult animals in widely branching underground burrows that can consist of long tunnels and multiple breeding chambers. Within the colony a strict ranking order prevails, headed by the dominant Platzrammler, the territorial buck. The species is also visually distinct from the brown hare: shorter ears without black tips, shorter hind legs, a rounder body shape, and dark brown rather than amber-coloured eyes. Add to this a noticeably earlier sexual maturity and a correspondingly high reproductive rate.

In hunting terms the Wildkaninchen counts as classic small game and is traditionally hunted in the German-speaking countries above all through burrow hunting with ferrets, the Baujagd, and on driven hunts, Drück- and Treibjagden, in Niederwild revieren. In ferret hunting, the Frettieren, the ferret is sent into the burrow, drives the rabbits out of the tunnels and pushes them in front of the gun or into a net laid out at the burrow entrance. A defining feature of the species is the pronounced fluctuation of stocks, driven mainly by recurring waves of myxomatosis and RHD. Both viral diseases can cause mortality of close to one hundred per cent in affected populations, so that local stocks may collapse almost completely for years and then rebuild only slowly from surviving animals. Revier teams with rabbit ground therefore align hunting closely with the actual stock present and frequently refrain from hunting on their own initiative in thinly populated areas.