Help with a Rabbit job?

I have a rabbit job in an inner city park with very high foot and vehicle traffic. The rabbits have increased in number enough to have started eating some of the cultivated plants they have not offered to eat before. I have been using both wood and wire single door live traps with a variety of baits. I have to really work to hide the traps in the boxwood shrubs and other vegetation to keep them from being seen by the public. So far I have had no luck with any of the traps. I am contemplating placing a trail cam out with some bait to try to determine numbers in that area. This one has me scratching my head, so any helpful advice is greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

Do they need a landscaper? Usually, trimming back the cover will let the hawks do the work. Otherwise, they are easier to catch in the winter.

Thank you Dave!
This is actually in a horticultural garden, so it is packed with perennials of many varieties. They usually have plants that the rabbits do not like, but they are starting to clean out certain species and they want the numbers trimmed back. It is literally a green sliver in a concrete jungle. I don't think they want to wait until winter either and for me waiting that long would be a fail. I have not seen them on my stops, but I have seen their feeding sign, but not bedding/resting sign.

They are designed to reproduce...

Yes, well you can say that again.

Can you get unlimited access at night? Ideally sole access without any public eyes. A light and air rifle will be far more effective.

In an inner city? Now, I really question your judgement. But, to each their own.

Safety as always is number one followed by discretion.

everything in reason. If the park closes at night, ask the bums to leave and establish safe shooting lanes before.

Unfortunately any form of firearm is not an option here. We are literally in the downtown area and right next to a river. There is no gates or fences in this particular park area. I am literally a few less than 100 feet wide in some areas and about four blocks long. I would love to be able to do the air rifle but that is not an option. I just thought someone might have had a similar situation that the traps did the job.

Thanks!!

Snares?

Dumping ground for feral cats?

hire a falconer to come help at night

How about drift fencing or use natural funnels with double door traps.

This is probably better, but not as fun as a falcon

Thank you! The drift fence will be a challenge in this location, but I may be able to pick some choke point and "crawl under" locations and hit with the double doors.

Without receiving special authority from DOW, rabbit control in Ohio is live capture and release only. You may want to look into making or purchasing some wooden rabbit traps. Either use them immediately or find someone that raises rabbits and borrow a couple to "season" the traps before use.

Your traps that you are using may have the wrong "seasoning". Eric has a point.

I heard leaving moth balls all over the bushes helps.

I am not an ADC trapper but I have caught lots of rabbits in box traps that are chewing up gardens and the best thing I have found is to use cotton balls soaked in vanilla extract along with bait which really helps get their attention and gets them to enter the trap

ROTFLMAO!!!!!
Sure you don't have a bunch of peta type helpers?

Are you sure that the problem is rabbits and not muskrats coming in from the Great Miami river?

Keith

Eric and Kirk, while the cage traps have been used for muskrat, they are clean and should not have issues. I did make new wooden box traps for these rabbits so they do not have any other animal odors. I used other rabbit pellets to try to help with the confidence to no avail yet. I do appreciate all the suggestions. Dev, I may try that with the cotton balls, I used some geranium oil already. Yes, Eric our state laws put some restrictions on us in this kind of situation. Thanks to each of you!