What happened to all the jacks?

Wind River

Wind River

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Disease, predation, or? Growing up in Utah, Colo., and later Wyoming the jackrabbits were plentiful. This is back in the ‘60s-‘70s. I seldom see one now.
 
Very scarce here in Nebraska. When my Dad was a young man, (60's) there was a bounty, 50 cents I think. Predators, including the ones in the air that we aren't allowed to control, would be my guess in ranch country.
 
Yep, when I was a youngster there was an outfit paying for jacks, if I recall correctly, $.25 each, maybe more. I believe they were making pet food out of them. In those days you could spotlight them at night and pop a dozen or more in a short time. Big money for a 12 year old.
But that sort of thing doesn’t go on anymore so why haven’t they recovered?
 
The little town I lived in MN had photographers of big jackrabbit round-ups with piles of jacks.

The first PM convention in Elko the land was alive with them by the second gathering a year later they all but disappeared.

Same in southern NM, when I first started to come down here there were jacks everywhere, now it is rare that see one.

In all the places I've been where the jack population has plummeted so has the coyote population.

I wonder if they will ever come back?
 
Back in the late 50's, in the Oklahoma panhandle just after wheat harvest my older brother, a cousin and myself harvested 92 jacks one night riding around straddling the headlights of an old 46 model chevy pickup. We were using an old Remington single shot 22. Made my fingers sore loading that thing shot after shot!
 
I was hunting Wyoming in June and the later in the evening it got the more I seen, they were coming into a soda ash water hole
 
Same story here in CO as you guys are telling. Cottontails went with the jacks. I have never heard a good explanation as to why the rabbit numbers took a dive. I almost think it had to be a rabbit health related thing..
 
This year we have tons of Cottontail Rabbits. I probable see 40 Cottontail Rabbits for every one Jack Rabbit that I see. We also have way more than average numbers of Kangaroo Rats this year.
 
I just started my season this week, it finally cooled off though I'm still picking tomatoes and chilis. Today we made five stands, we saw five jackrabbits, that is two more than I saw all last season. I hope it bodes well for the future.

Coyote sign is still limited but I've called in four in a total of eight stands one stand was a double though.
 
It is just one possible explanation but I think 1080 is a big reason there was lots of Jack Rabbits in the 50's and 60's. After 1080 was banned, hawks, eagles and other predator numbers increased.
 
When PM had the first convention in Elko the place was crawling with jackrabbits coming out of the field in the evening the ditches were alive with jackrabbits. We found coyotes just about everywhere. The second year jacks were non-existent we hit some canyons that jackrabbit bones crunched under foot and we had to work for our coyotes.

Same thing with NM between the time we had the convention here and I moved here the population plummeted even five years ago there were jacks and coyotes in fair abundance. And then things went down hill to last year of almost no rabbits and hard earned coyotes with a large majority of them older dogs. I attributed to the terrible draught we've been experiencing here, maybe it is more.

I've heard rumors of Hemorrhagic Fever in the rabbits, arial spraying and poisoning but haven't pursue it.

I just Googled the disappearance of rabbits in NM and found that in 2020 Hemorrhagic Fever hit NM hard and the heavy predation and heavy grazing on draught damaged pastures have slowed the recovery of the limited survivers.
 
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BrianID said:
It is just one possible explanation but I think 1080 is a big reason there was lots of Jack Rabbits in the 50's and 60's. After 1080 was banned, hawks, eagles and other predator numbers increased.
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The places I'm talking about that once upon a time was over ran with rabbits did not ever have an over abundance of hawks, eagles and other rabbit eating critters. Coyotes I'm sure take their fair share. but you could of multiplied all those rabbit eaters by 10 and it wouldn't account for the rabbits almost totally disappearing.

I'm positive it had to be something like AWS mentioned for it to happen like it did.
 
Farming has changed. A lot more chemicals going into to the fields. In mn we have very few bunnies compared to 40years ago. We also don’t have pheasants like we did. IMHO.
 
I lived between Moorhead and Detroit Lakes in the 70s, we had some jacks around, not like the pictures in the museum but enough that I could pop one off the deck out in my alfalfa field now and then. Up there pheasants were marginal, severe winters with deep snow and no place to get to out of it made survival hard.
 
We shot 17 in one weekend a few weekends ago. Saw probably 65 or 70. We won the most jackrabbits sidepot in a contest.

We were more focused on killin coyotes than rabbits.
 
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