Easy to like job-loving beagles

MOUNT VERNON – We should all love our jobs as much as beagles love theirs.

Dan Solomon's Sadie, Storm and Jasmine and Keith Lowe's Roxy filled the brushy draws with hound music and cheerfully beat their tails bloody in the multiflora rose thickets during a four-hour hunt Sunday, Jan. 30, 2011,in the very southeast corner of Linn County

The smart/lucky rabbits holed up before the baying hounds could chase them past the people with guns. The five that couldn't find holes will be served at a game feed next month to benefit young cancer patients.

While the dogs snuffled through the tangled ravines, I and four Cedar Rapids residents -- Dan, his wife Kerry, Keith and Gary McNeese -- followed along on the ridges, waiting for the urgent yelps that signaled a rabbit was in play.

The senior dogs, Sadie and Roxy, sounded off whenever they were on a trail, which was often, and excitement peaked when the younger dogs, who keep their mouths shut until they see the rabbit, joined the chorus.

One particular rabbit provided nearly a morning's occupation by itself.

I missed first as it raced, with the pack in hot pursuit, through a patch of state fair-quality horseweeds. The pack then trailed it to a brush pile, which the dogs eventually forced it to evacuate. In a bold but seemingly low-odds move, the rabbit ran directly at the people with guns, drawing 13 ineffectual rounds before it disappeared over the hill, where the not-easily-discouraged-or-embarrassed hounds resumed the chase.

Keith finally got it with the 17th shotgun shell expended in its direction.

The beagles, which are better known for persistence than for their military-style discipline in the presence of rabbit scent, generally followed instructions. They balked at exhortations to move along only when they were less convinced than their masters that the rabbit had taken refuge in a hole.

For reasons not obvious to anyone who has ever spent time with beagles, rabbit hunting has declined markedly in popularity among Iowans during the past half century.

On average from 1963 through 1972, 153,700 Iowans harvested 1.7 million rabbits per year. During the most recent 10-year period, the comparable numbers were 33,270 hunters and 196,500 rabbits.

While cottontail numbers have declined in recent years, mostly because of harsh winters, rabbit populations, unlike other upland game species such as pheasant and quail, have remained fairly stable, according to Todd Bogenschutz, the Department of Natural Resources upland game manager.

Bogenschutz attributes the rabbit's waning popularity among hunters to the state's rural-to-urban shift, which has deprived thousands of farm kids of the opportunity to hunt them, and to the ascent of more glamorous game species such as deer, turkey and Canada geese, which were scarce in Iowa 50 years ago. The season runs from Sept. 1 through the end of February.

The rabbits and many other wild game delights will be served starting at 2 p.m. March 13 at The Rut Bar and Grill, 6913 Mount Vernon Rd., Cedar Rapids. Donations at last year's game feed raised about $2,500 for the Aiming for a Cure Foundation, which supports cancer patients and their families served by the University of Iowa Children's Hospital.