Bunnies are vermin

I come from a family of belligerents - at least where animals are concerned. If you are a member of the animal kingdom and you make a pest of yourself, you'd be well advised to leave most of my relatives alone. PETA be damned, you're going down.

I can recall my great uncle (back when E and I were still dating) relating his cat killing sprees with pride. Mind you, this was the first time he met E, and it occurred in the first few minutes of the conversation.

As in Hi, this is E, we just got here, we -
"Great! How do you do? Did I ever tell you how many cats I shot in my youth?"

I've been at holiday dinners where my uncles gleefully relating their best "and-I-had-to-shoot-it-five-times-in-the-head-before-it-stopped-squirming" stories to their brother's new vegetarian/animal rights girlfriend.

My own father used my air rifle to shoot dogs who crapped in his yard.

Not the squeamish types, I guess is what I'm driving at.

-but then there's me. I have gone deer hunting a total of two times. I have no qualms with the killing of animals, or those who choose to do so - my chief objection with hunting is why does it have to occur when it is so F-ing cold outside? I mean, there aren't dear in June? What the hell, people?

That, and one other reason. The reason I stopped going. NG, The guy who invited us up to hunt was a great guy - he and his brother owned the land and the shack we hunted out of. They cooked the food and basically went out of their way to make sure the guys were having a good time. They went all out. First time I ever ate surf n' turf? Deer camp.

Second time out, I'm walking around a bend and hear a shot (okay, I don't remember the shot, but there must have been a shot). I trot down the trail a bit and here's NG, our fearless leader, getting out his kit standing over a dead deer.

NG is plunging his knife into the deer's neck and beginning the process of gutting it. It was nasty, I don't mind saying - but I had decided to take the attitude that this is just something you deal with for the hunt. Y'know, suck it up - that kind of stuff. I certainly don't want to look like a wuss in front of the veterans. I'm not sure I pulled it off, but forget about the deer - that's not why I stopped hunting.

I stopped because of NG. What he looked like at that moment. This is a man who has hunted for years, owns land for the express purpose of hunting. Spends weeks preparing for the hunt and (as I said) goes to great lengths to ensure that his hunting party has a good time.

-He looked completely disgusted. I can't speak for his actual state of mind, but his expression was one of complete revulsion for what he was doing. He was gutting a deer and he hated it. Downing a deer was the whole reason we were out here. This guy had more than a few deers in his history, and yet here he was, deer in hand and he looked like he wished to be anywhere else in the world.

That was it for me - the hunts were a good time, but I figured working my way up to the point where I could gut a deer while discussing the weather was going to take at least as long as it had taken NG to get this far. That much investment didn't appeal to me, and besides it was too F-ing cold.

Where was I? Oh, so my house has an infestation of rabbits, and I hate them. It's not like I have a garden to protect, but they are always scampering about, just on the edge of my sight lines. I just want to drop kick one of them so they'll move on.

Bunnies? How could you?

Yeah, bunnies - bunnies are vermin. So are squirrels. Damn things.

On more than a few occasions I have thought about asking mom for my air rifle back so I can nail a few of the damn things, but mom likes having the air rifle - and I'm not making an issue of it.

So, yesterday I'm mowing the lawn after about a month-long hiatus. The grass is easily a foot high in the backyard and while my Honda mower is a beast, even it has problems with that much grass. Periodically, it kills and I have to start it all over again (first pull! Go, Honda!).

About a fourth of the way through the back, the Honda chokes out on a big clump and I roll it back to a clear spot and start to pull cord.

-and I hear a ring tone go off. At least that's what I think it is - a high pitched chirping from my left. Only I don't have my phone and there's no way there's a cell phone in my lawn. I roll the mower back further and there's some small, furry thing writhing on the ground. It opens its mouth and chirps again.

It's about the size of a mouse, but it's clearly a rabbit. A very young rabbit. It's rolling back and forth on its back, and there's a hole in the ground next to it that also appears to be moving.

I'm more than a bit surprised. A closer look reveals that, yes - it is a rabbit, and yes - it's just been hit by my lawnmower. Not in some ghastly, TV show way - no blood, just mortal injury. I watch it flail around, remembering the time I ran over a cat with my car (or last week, when I killed a squirrel who really shouldn't have doubled back). In both of those situations, the event was there and gone in less time than it takes to say it.

This time, I get to watch the animal die. Or finish it off.

If dad were here, he'd step on the animal's head and go get a garbage bag - actually, he'd have done that long ago. It wouldn't have taken more than a second.

Vermin.

Me, I sit there wondering what the right move should be, while this rabbit twitches and flops around. I look to see if there are any other casualties. The movement in the hole turns out to be five more little rabbits - all incredibly asleep and apparently uninjured. They squeal as I move them around with my foot.

Okay, now what? No mom rabbit around, and one of these guys is about to die.

I move them all out of the way, and finish mowing the lawn. My rationale is: there's no saving the one I hit, and the live ones have already been freaked out. I'll finish the lawn and mom will come back tonight.

Lame.

Yeah, it was pretty lame. Either way, that's pretty much a failure. Either you wipe them out right then, or you're on the phone with the animal shelter. I have to say that the idea that the animal shelter would have anything to do with rabbits (wild rabbits, at that) seems remote, but then - I have a long way to go to understand the lengths to which some animal lovers will go.

So it's the next day and I go out there. The one has died, three are dying and two I can't find. No mom in sight, but maybe mom came back and took the two she felt could make it. I'm not having the boy come out here and start playing with the fuzzy animals - so this is it for them.

They're vermin, right? I get a trash bag and a bucket. They go into my garbage. I still don't feel like killing them outright, and anyway - outside of violence - I don't have any easy way to do it.

So later in the day, I come home to see mom rabbit outside my garbage can. Her kids are long dead by now, but she's here to inform me that I have made a very poor decision. She runs off.

We grill out for dinner, and I find the two missing rabbits, still alive and huddled in the grass. Mom hasn't saved them, they haven't saved themselves - and this time tomorrow, they'll be two more dead rabbits in my backyard.

They're vermin, and they're doomed - and I still don't feel like killing them just to be done with it.

Wuss.