PIRATES OF THE PRAIRIES

They called them “Rabbit Drives” or Rabbit “Rodeos” – a term normally equated with competition, horse-flesh and skill. There was none of that.

By Debbie MacRae

The rabbit rodeo was derived as a means of selfpreservation in an effort to combat irresponsible land management, depletion of prairie grasses, overstocked ranches and wind erosion. They were cruel, bloody and …necessary. Rabbit Rodeos would create a moral outrage not seen since the first World War. Their impact would be felt all over North America.

It is hard to imagine the innocuous little “bunny rabbit” as anything other than cute, cuddly and innocent – seemingly fragile and vulnerable.

A symbol of fertility and good luck, rabbits represent springtime, intuition and new beginnings; their presence evocative of warm summer days, picnics and light-heartedness.

Sadly, during the dust-bowl era, these creatures haunted the hearts of man and beast alike, plundering and pillaging the prairie. And in the race against time, there was no other option.

Until the first World War, rabbits and hares were considered to belong to the order ‘rodentia’ or rodents, small mammals gifted with continuously growing incisors on both the upper and lower jaws. It wasn’t until 1912, that the order of the rabbit was changed to ‘lagomorphs’ due to the evolution of their dentistry; having four incisors in the upper jaw including two non-functional teeth. They were no longer considered rodents.

The popularity of the rabbit dates back to the sixth or seventh century in China, during the Sui Dynasty. The Three Hares motif first appeared in cave temples, iconic along the Silk Road and was often associated with Buddhism – representing peace and tranquility.

The range of symbolic meanings varied between religions, but was generally presented in a circular motif with three rabbits chasing one another, with one of the three ears shared by two hares; (only three ears are shown.) With symbolism ranging from fertility and the lunar cycle to the Trinity, the rabbit has essentially been venerated for centuries in geographically diverse locations around the world.

In an order of prey animals existing on six of the seven continents of the world (excepting Antarctica), the rabbit had never been viewed as predacious or threatening, coexisting in both wild and domestic environments, generally as food.

Prior to the introduction of the Industrial Revolution in the 1760s, society was largely agrarian, with limited urban centres, placed primarily along rivers and coastal waters. Less than 40 percent of the North American population resided in cities before the 1900s. Farmers performed their chores by hand or with the aid of a horse or an ox. Cows were milked by hand. Fields were plowed with walking plows, and farmers forked hay with pitchforks.

Grain was manually cut into sheaves, tied into bundles and vertically stacked against one another to air dry in “shocks”. This method of drying also kept the heads off the ground to avoid pillaging by vermin – typically rodents and rabbits.

After the devastation of the Civil War in the United States, the federal government introduced several land acts, which encouraged farmers to move further west and develop farmland in the great plains region. Most of these farmers flowed from urban areas and were inexperienced in the lifestyle. The work was labour intensive. Agriculture was powered by work animals and humans.

Canada’s prairie provinces saw incredible growth in immigration from 1900 through the

1920s as settlers came to the west, supported by the Canadian Pacific Railroad (CPR), to establish their own farmland. The area was known as North America’s “Bread Basket” because of the successful growth of grain crops.

Previous to the 1920s there were a series of wet years, lending the impression that the plains area had rainfall which would naturally yield great production. This ecological misunderstanding led to over-cultivation of marginal lands which were more arid in nature than the perception they presented.

Cultivation of the grasslands disturbed the binding power holding the soil. Disruption of the soil and high winds, coupled with increasing wheat prices and over-grazing of cattle, created more soil disruption as farmers sowed more crop to benefit from the rising prices.

The over-production then created an overabundance of wheat yields, which dropped the wheat prices and led to the environmental and economic crises experienced in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Most Canadians who lived through the era remember the years as “The Dirty Thirties,” while our American counter-parts referred more to the term, the “Dust Bowl.” This term evolved from a line from an Associated Press reporter, Robert Geiger, who, on April 15, 1935, commenced his report with this line, “Three little words achingly familiar on a Western farmer’s tongue, rule life in the dust bowl of the continent – if it rains.”

Our parents and grandparents still turn their coffee and tea-cups upside-down reminiscent of the dust that accumulated in the cupboards.

Those years were a culmination of drought and high winds, exacerbated by over-cultivation, soil disturbance, wind erosion, and over-grazing.

Ensuing on the heels of the stock market crash of October, 1929, the decade known as the Great Depression, was a period of extreme hardship.

Infestations of grasshoppers arose from the hot, dry climate of 1931. Devouring crops, and swarming people, even eating the laundry on clotheslines, their impact was a scourge on the earth. During wetter years, natural fungi and bird populations controlled grasshopper numbers, however, during hot, dry climates, grasshoppers exceeded the controls. It was estimated that in 1935, clouds of grasshoppers with as many as 23,000 insects per acre consumed anything they could eat. The National Guard was called to crush them, and burn infected fields. Conservations Corps spread insecticides, including mixtures of molasses, bran and arsenic in an attempt to reduce their numbers.

Dust storms turned daylight to darkness. Dust and sand choked animals and humans alike, smothering and blinding whole herds of cattle, sheep and horses. Dust pneumonia, known as the “brown plague,” killed children and the elderly by the hundreds, forming a type of silicosis often referred to as “farmer’s lung.”

Static electricity became a problem large enough to short out car engines and radios, prompting people to drag chains behind their vehicles to ground the static. Blue sparks and flames leapt from barbed wire, and even people shaking hands could generate a jolt so strong it threw them to the ground.

In the US, as part of a restoration strategy, the New Deal formulated by Roosevelt found the federal government purchasing herds of starving cattle to reduce the impact of grazing. Cattle healthy enough to be utilized for food, were provided to the homeless. Farmers were paid to use crop rotation techniques, leave their land sit idle, or replant prairie grasses. The federal government bought over 10 million acres of land, converting them to grasslands, some of which are still managed by the US Forest Service today.

However, the Canadian government was slow to follow suit. Although farmers struggled to maintain their farms, banks began repossessing them at an alarming rate. It is estimated that between the years 1930 and 1935, approximately 750,000 farms were lost; the majority of them in southeastern Alberta and southern Saskatchewan.

Following the transfer of natural resources from federal jurisdiction to provincial juris- diction, Alberta formulated the Alberta Water Resources Act in 1931, demonstrating support for irrigation systems in southern Alberta. With irrigation came a resurgence of activity on arid and semi-arid farmland, and with that, new crop development. However, this was not yet the end.

In seemingly biblical chronology, plagues of rabbits descended on the prairies and great plains, destroying whatever meager crops and forage would grow. Tons of hay, preserved for feeding livestock would disappear in a day or two.

Rabbits would converge onto irrigated farmlands by the thousands, decimating crops before they could surface the ground. Acres of crop would disappear in one night. In an endless cycle of devastation, rabbits became the “new evil,” capable of producing litters of up to eight offspring every 32 days.

Many states and provinces declared the rabbit invasion a state of emergency. The US and Canada alike wrestled with effective measures of controlling their presence. When it came down to a battle between survival of livestock and humans versus a humane means of eradication, there was no contest. “Rabbit round-ups” or “Rabbit rodeos” became the only viable solution. Utilized as early as the turn of the century in an effort to control rabbit populations, the concept emerged again in the mid 1930s. It was not pleasant, but it was not new.

Drives were generally held on weekends when the community would group together to herd the animals into corralled enclosures. Round-ups were most often held in February and March in an effort to curb increasing populations. They were advertised from county to county, on handbills and waybills, by newspapers and word of mouth, encouraging farmers and townspeople alike, to participate.

Varying contributors from municipalities to wealthy individuals supplied fencing and “drive” materials. Their sizes varied, ranging from mere acres of land to sections – some as large as several miles long and wide – to create a bottleneck by which the rabbits would eventually meet a gruesome demise. Faced with complete crop obliteration and decreasing feed for increasing numbers of starving livestock, the cost of the loss far outweighed the humaneness of the process.

The object was to walk in one or two lines, scaring the rabbits forward by yelling, making noise, pounding on pots and pans, or honking car horns – anything to make the rabbits run to the fenced area in the centre.

Ammunition was too scarce and costly to ex- pend trying to shoot thousands of rabbits. The fear of hitting a person, or worse, eliminated that means of control. Although some rabbits were used as food given the hardships, fear of catching “rabbit fever” discouraged most from using rabbits as a food source. Ultimately, rabbits, by the thousands, would be controlled by clubbing – the most immediate and effective means of population reduction.

In response, moral outrage citing cruelty to animals was rampant. From the east and from the urban, references to the ‘ritualistic slaughter’ arose from ignorance of the real situation.

In trying to protect their livestock and their livelihoods, farmers stimulated the wrath of their neighbours. Eastern provinces and states harshly criticized participants for being inhumane and lobbied against the carnage, accusing agrarians of hunting rabbits “for the sport.”

Because the critics had not experienced the problem, they were quick to lobby against livestock prices, and newspapers throughout the mid-west carried stories about the drives creating further division.

However, attempts to send live rabbits to the east, both as a food source, and to reduce populations were quickly met with opposition. Game conservation and wildlife officials soon realized how destructive and prolific rabbits were and orders were quickly cancelled. In the state of Kansas alone, it is estimated that feed for almost a quarter million cattle was saved by reduction of the rabbit population. Multiply that by almost half the US states, and half of Canada, and the savings in terms of livelihood, livestock and food availability was astronomical.

It is seemingly impossible to appreciate the full cost of the 1930s Dust Bowl impact – however one estimate provides that the US government expended upwards of $1 billion dollars toward economic recovery. Canada was among one of the most profoundly affected countries in the world, shirt-tailing on the economics of its southern neighbor, however, the real economic impact on Canada has never been fully realized.

There are fears that the devastation of the Dust Bowl years may yet be revisited. Drought is still a reality. It is how we manage that possibility that will determine our future outcome. But as we move forward into a new era of conservation, it is hoped the era of the rabbit drive has come to its final conclusion. From a humane perspective, it is hoped that we never have to experience the magnitude of either experience, physically or morally, on our conscience. again. WHR