NC Rabbit sightings used to be much more common in Scotland than they are now

FREE now SUBSCRIBE Invalid email Make the most of your money by signing up to our newsletter fornow We will use your email address only for sending you newsletters. Please see our Privacy Notice for details of your data protection rights.

The Mammal Society, which is dedicated to the conservation of all mammals, now wants people to report sightings of the animals, which were once very common. Professor Fiona Mathews, chair of the charity, said that, while there remained uncertainty about the true extent of the decline, the BTO figures for Scotland were “worrying”. She said: “There have been reports of very large declines. “This is data supplied by the British Trust for Ornithology, who have got people to report over a number of years when they’ve been out looking for birds to also report whether they have seen rabbits.

In Scotland, the declines look particularly large compared to the rest of the UK Professor Fiona Mathews

“The scale, if it is really that big, that’s obviously quite worrying. “In Scotland, the declines look particularly large compared to the rest of the UK, and partly that might be because they are more on the edge of their range in much of Scotland. “But we need to find out what’s going on because they are now such a fundamental part of our ecosystem. “For stoats, rabbit is a major part of their diet, while polecats use rabbit burrows and foxes prey on rabbits.

GETTY As a fundamental part of the ecosystem, the rabbit population dip must be solved

“If the rabbits aren’t there, you have all these other knock-on effects on everything else.” Mathews, professor of environmental biology at Sussex University, said that rabbits had been seen as a pest species in the past, and their existence taken for granted. She said their decline could be due to a combination of persecution and diseases such as myxomatosis and the lesser-known rabbit haemorrhagic disease. In Scotland, she said a lack of suitable habitat and weather – particularly snow – could also be factors. She said: “I think that perhaps that is the attitude that has been taken historically – that rabbits are a pest so if they disappear we don’t much care. “On the other hand, I think maybe rabbits are a bit like sparrows or bees.