Hare be trouble

Yes, we have hares. They snip off lower branches of selected trees - cornus, chimonanthus praecox, hornbeams, and chew down young cabbage trees. They love young kowhai more than all the rest and nibbled one to death last year. Last year, this year.

This year they have had another go at the hornbeams but, more dangerously, they have also gnawed at the trunks of several cornus and an apple tree - fortunately not all the way round the trunk, which would probably kill the tree.

What to do. Mason threatens to get a gun but we seldom see the culprits. We have tried several methods - and will continue to try to fox them (wish we had a fox!)

1 Last year we painted the hornbeams with chicken fat from a Sunday roast - hares are vegetarian and the smell of meat fat should apparently deter them. It was difficult to know whether that worked because the damage had been done by the time we spread the fat.
2 Last week I cut up an old pair of Mason's pyjama pants, soaked the scraps in vinegar and dropped them at the bases of nibbled trees - apparently hares don't like the smell of vinegar.
3 I am going to start carrying a salt shaker of chilli powder with me and give a shake under vulnerable trees on the way round. Sniff that, Brer Hare!
4 We have also tried spraying a fungicide Thiram on affected trees.

We could try poison but we worry that dogs or hawks might eat a carcase and be poisoned.

Why do hares nibble trees? Two theories. Some say they are territorial and attack new arrivals. If this is so, why don't they attack all new-comers, not just a selected few? Others say they are keeping their long front teeth down. If this is so, that explains the gnawing on trunks, but why the single snips of young branches? It is a mystery.

We also have rabbits, which may be a bigger problem in the end. They breed more successfuly than hares.