We headed up tonight along with my friends Ruth and Fraser who spotted the bunny originally and Natalie from Buddies Bunny rescue.
As myself and Stewart were waiting on the others arriving we drove up and down the stretch of road that bunny had been spotted previously. My friend Ruth had indicated that she had been up earlier but had failed to spot the rabbit. As we'd seen her every time we'd been up this was obviously a bit concerning. On our way past the usual spot my partner spotted a rabbit and, although he won't swear he's 100% correct, he's sure that this one was smaller and differently marked to the one we'd seen before.
We drove to a layby and spotted the usual bunny and pulled up alongside her to wait for the others. When they arrived we set a trap but bunny was too canny to be lured in and she vanished into the undergrowth once again after we'd come close to catching her a few times.
What we're now worried about is if the rabbit has a dependant litter. I didn't see the rabbit that Stewart seen but he's sure that the "baby" rabbit he seen was around half the size of the adult (who is a medium/small sized rabbit), had a different pattern and was a different colour. With that in mind we can't decide between the following scenarios...
- Our rabbit was dumped or escaped while pregnant
- Our rabbit is a male and has mated with a wild female (though we saw no evidence of wildies nearby)
- Our rabbit is female and has been caught by a wild male
- More than one rabbit has been dumped
Stewart isn't experienced enough to know a large baby rabbit from a small adult and so is a fairly unreliable witness in this respect.
As a result of this we're unsure if we should continue to try to capture the mother. Natalie is sure that as he/she has been out at the same place for so long and because there is so much cover nearby it's possible she'll be OK until we manage to catch her. We've been left with a number of puppy panels that we can continue to use and I'm collecting a live trap tomorrow.
However as we say we're not sure if trapping the usual rabbit and removing her is going to result in the baby or babies being dealt a death sentence.