A great number of rabbits they continue to roam freely through the agricultural land in the regions of Lleida. The garrigueshe segriàhe Pla d’Urgellhe urgellthe segarra wave noguera These are some examples of areas with a great abundance of wild rabbits, this animal that is increasingly easy to see near big cities like Barcelona.
These animals approach the crops to look for food and devour part of the crops. The Government has put some measures in progress to try to avoid these negative effects, for example the use of poison depending on which irrigation infrastructure. For environmentalists, this measure is totally out of place. For farmers, it is insufficient.
Finding no food in bushy areas, rabbits turn to planted fields
However, some specialists recognize that the drought, this territory is suffering especially, encourages the proliferation of these animals in the sown fields. Enric Moreraresponsible for the Espais Naturals de Ponent, explains it this way: “When these animals they can’t find food in the margins and areas of bushes, they go to the fields, where they do have food, since they are watered. What is needed is a separation between fields with good shrubby vegetation, which with the drought has been decimated by water stress.”
Sources from the Department of Climate Action consider that it is necessary to promote biodiversity in agricultural spaces so that the rabbits have their spaces. They propose promoting leafy margins and recovering species in decline such as the european polecatwhich can eliminate large number of rabbits.
complex problem
Other solutions involve maintaining good populations of birds Raptors that also act as predators of rabbits. The problem is that some of these species are often run over or electrocutionsin fact the regions of Lleida are the territory of Catalonia that accumulates more crash deaths with high voltage lines.
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Several of these wounded birds of prey accumulate in the wildlife centers of the Generalitat, some of them also from shots. They are animals that help keep rabbits at bay. From IPCENAa naturalistic entity of the area, go along the same lines: “The agricultural intensification has erased many margins and for this reason rabbits invade the fields. Also, their predators don’t have forest habitats and a bush to hide and live, since almost everything is planted”.
From this entity they consider that the fox would have to be out of the species that are allowed to huntsince it can also eat rabbits. In addition, they criticize that some farmers ask to hunt rabbits in protected areas for birds: “If it is allowed, we will enter into a loop without a solution.”