Problems caused by Rabbits
Rabbits are one of those pests that don’t really start to annoy people until they start appearing in numbers. Unfortunately numbers are one of the things that rabbits do best; these medium sized rodents breed incredibly efficiently, good if you eat them but bad if they eat your lawn and garden.
That is actually the biggest area where rabbits are considered pests. As those of you with gardens know, it takes a lot of work and a lot of time to coax a small amount of food out of the ground, and a few rabbits can show up and in one night ruin a few months worth of work!
Rabbits are not just a threat to your vegetable garden (although this is the area they are likely to attack first) they can also be quite damaging to your landscaping. They will eat several dozen different species of flower, and in both winter and summer rabbits have been known to strip the bark off of trees. Sometimes the damage becomes so extensive that the tree cannot survive and must be taken down! This damage is limited to trees with soft bark; but that does include most species of fruit tree and several of the most favoured species of ornamental tree. Saplings of all species are particularly vulnerable to rabbit depredation.
The end result of your garden or landscaping becoming a rabbit meal is not only a lot of labour hours lost, but also a significant amount of money in most cases. The damage to trees, in particular, can be especially aggravating to the home owner. Think barked trees are often the most expensive to purchase, and having one or two die after having their lower bark stripped by grazing rabbits can really hit a pocket book.
Most species of rabbits are also burrowers who live in underground networks of dens during the day to seek shelter from predators. Rabbits are most likely to dig in banks or underneath porches and other areas that offer some degree of natural shelter; no one likes to see holes in their yards, and in addition the networks underneath a shed, concrete patio, and even houses may serve to undermine the structure.
Finally, rabbits have been known to carry a few different diseases, although most are not usually fatal to humans. For the most part it is species such as fleas or ticks, which may make their home on a rabbit, which are likely to transmit any diseases to humans. Rabbits have been found to carry the species of tick which carries Lyme Disease, although this is thought to be rare.