For thousands of years, ferrets have been used as hunters in the field. They were trained to be more effective in hunting field pests such as rodents and rabbits. This is also probably the reason that ferrets are now domesticated in households. Although some people may oppose the process of ferret hunting, it is actually one of the more humane pest controls there is regarding hunting rabbits and rodents in the fields, gardens and forests. The other forms of pest controls that have been available do not necessarily equate to an ecological and safe way of hunting down pests in fields. In fact, at times these other pest controls can even damage other animals apart from the target ones.
So what exactly is the reason that rabbits are being hunted down? Although they possess an appealing aesthetic value, rabbit in fact cause a lot of damage to the environment especially to agriculture. They eat the most part of vegetation, from agricultural crops, shrubs, grasses and trees. If they exist in a multitude of quantity, then the damage that they are causing is catastrophic. They also have a tendency to build their homes underground which then further leads to soil erosion and damage. Since they mainly thrive on vegetation, the vegetation that could have helped in combating drought is gone and therefore the fields of crops are already exposed to such a difficult condition. At times they may also eat and even destroy other natural habitat of other animals that are living in the areas.
This is the reason that ferret hunting have always been a popular way to get rid of rabbits. Apart from other ways such as gassing, shooting and myxomatosis, ferret hunting poses a lesser danger to the larger scale.
Gassing is a form of pest control and should only be carried out under license. It is a subtle way of killing all animals that may be present in a field or in tunnels. Using cyanide as the primary gas, it is then let out in these tunnels and whatever animal come in contact with the gas is killed. However, the danger lies if it is not properly carried out by the field owner. There may be a time that he may forget to block all other entrances to the tunnels and other rather safe animals go inside it. All the more does it get more dangerous to ferrets since these animals love to go down tunnels and burrows.
The second method is shooting which is rather ineffective if you are not an experienced shooter. Also, it does require a lot of hard work and patience. You have to wait for the rabbits to show up and wait for your cue to shoot them. Many times you only have one choice in shooting these animals as they may quickly be gone after a missed shot.
The third method, myxomatosis is a man made disease and has been proven to be quite effective in killing rabbits. Although effective, it still poses such an inhumane way of killing them. When a rabbit has contracted this type of disease, his tissues swell which causes his face to become so puffed. Also, his breathing becomes more difficult and his eyesight is blinded. Digestion is also impaired which means that his nutrition is slowly degrading. This type of pest control is now illegal because of its inhumane ways in getting rid of rabbits.
So despite the effectiveness of these methods, ferreting is the only one that is rather humane to the part of the rabbit. With ferret hunting, rabbits are given the chance to escape from the hunt of the ferrets. Also, since no part of the ecology or agriculture is being torn down, it is absolutely safe to the environment. These and a lot more make ferret hunting a much more humane way of pest control.
Automatic blog by iAutoblog
No comments:
Post a Comment