[Magdalen] Fox screams

[Sibyl Smirl]

On 5/28/15 1:09 PM, Marion Thompson wrote:
> I have heard foxes barking, in England, lots.  Rabbits scream horribly!

That is for sure! I had heard that scream, seldom, all my life, but 
never knew what it was, even though I have lots of wild rabbits, and 
coyote and owl predators, in my yard and especially my back lot.  Then 
my daughter started up with a rabbit project for 4H, with big, fat New 
Zealand White bunnies.  Her prize buck managed to break out of his cage 
one day, and I spotted him happily munching sweet clover in the 
barnyard, devoid of camouflage or caution.  He had zero experience with 
predators, of course, and didn't recognize this predator as anything 
dangerous (if he had any concept at all of "danger", which I sort of 
doubt), because I'd been within a few inches of him, including handling 
him, for all his experience.  I grabbed him, hard and fast, and probably 
from being startled he let out this horrible shriek, so high in pitch as 
to be almost a "whistle"-- I came close to dropping him!  I suppose that 
I don't hear it often from the wild ones because the coyotes and owls do 
quick kills, unless they're clumsy: the bunnies are dead before they 
know they've been grabbed.  I had no intention of killing him, of 
course, just getting him back into his cage.   That particular occasion 
was the only time I'd heard it from a domesticated one.  But after that, 
I did know what was making it.


-- 
Sibyl Smirl
I will take no bull from your house!  Psalms 50:9a
mailto:polycarpa3 at ckt.net