It isn’t only rabbits who will suffer from the new surge of myxomatosis

Caught in the centre of a soundless field
While hot inexplicable hours go by
What trap is this? Where were its teeth concealed?
You seem to ask.
‘Myxomatosis’ by Philip Larkin

Aldbourne, Wiltshire
I saw the rabbit, a young doe, 50 yards or so down the path. ‘Look,’ I said to the kids, ‘a bunny.’ But even as I said the words, I knew that this would be a problematic encounter. The rabbit just sat there, its usual hair-trigger response to approaching danger apparently nullified. ‘A fairly stupid bunny,’ my oldest son pronounced, as we clumped closer to the creature and it still declined to bolt. ‘A very ill bunny,’ I told him. It didn’t move either when I stood over it, just remained aloof to the world, its eyes swollen and weeping, a hopeless bunny rabbit. It was in the last stages of its illness, wracked by pneumonia and fever, convulsed with lassitude, probably blind, maybe deaf too. What I should have done was kick it to death right there, but my getting a divorce was traumatic enough for the kids. I couldn’t inflict something like that on them, too. Beyond the line of oak and beech trees lining our path was open ground, above which a wake of buzzards soared and mewed; there were at least a dozen of them. They’d sort it all out quickly enough. After all, it’s probably why they were there.

Myxomatosis is a foul and cruel disease, bad enough even when you don’t have to explain its filthy human provenance to the kids. The suspicion right now is that it might be back with a vengeance. Our wild rabbit populations fluctuate hugely year on year but it is generally agreed that the creature has been in very sharp decline indeed over the past 15 years or so.