Wild rabbits invaded our garden area this year and ate 20 feet of bean plants and then ate all the leaves from my strawberry plants. What can I do next year to discourage the little creatures?
There is a helpful factsheet on rabbits from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Living with Wildlife website. Some of the recommended methods of control include exclusion fencing and barriers, noise-making and scaring devices (if you have a dog, this will help!), and even planting plants that are mostly unappealing to rabbits. There is also information on live-trapping, but this is not ideal because “the animals typically become disoriented, which results in them getting hit by a car or eaten by a predator. If they remain in the new area, they may cause similar problems there, or transmit diseases to other animals in the area. If a place ‘in the wild’ is perfect for rabbits, they are probably already there. It isn’t fair to the animals already living there to release another competitor into their home range to the detriment of both of them.”
Anecdotal evidence from local gardeners indicates that some odor deterrents may be effective. The UW Farm has had trouble with rabbits eating their plants. The farmers there have used a product that is blood meal-based (PlantSkydd). It comes in dry pellets or it can be mixed with water and applied with a sprayer. It is more or less odorless to the human nose. There are repellents made with putrefied eggs but I’ve heard that these smell wretched to humans, too. Urban coyotes do control the urban rabbit population but also prey on small domesticated pets, so we should never leave our cats and dogs unattended in the garden. The City of Seattle P-Patch Program’s document, Rabbits in the Garden, has a recipe for homemade repellent, and a recommendation against capturing the rabbits for human consumption.