I’m going to begin today’s column with a seventies story from my first book, A Dakota Rod and Nimrod. I think you’ll enjoy it.

Christmas was at our house that year, and my sister and her family from Palos Heights, a Chicago suburb, were spending the holidays with us. We were playing cards the day after Christmas when the telephone rang. It was Howard Bich, a friend and local school teacher.

“Rog, do you want to go to Yale tomorrow for a rabbit hunt?”

“Gee Howard, I’d like to go, but we have company. Wait a minute! Maybe they’d like to see what a Yale rabbit hunt is all about!” My father, my brother-in-law, John, and my little nephew, Jonny, all wanted to go, so we made plans to leave Wagner around 9:00 A.M. the next morning.

Yale rabbit hunts are an institution. They take place every Sunday afternoon during the winter months, and Claude Green, the organizer, lines up the property to be hunted beforehand. Generally, forty to sixty hunters participate, assembling at noon on Yale’s Main Street. Here the hunters, each carrying a shotgun, board school buses that leave off a hunter every hundred yards while surrounding a section of land.

Once the hunters have a section of land surrounded, they walk toward the center on Claude’s signal to begin. Pickups called “rabbit trucks” follow the hunters while the passengers load the rabbits as they are killed. Great care is exercised by all, especially when approaching the center. As mentioned, only shoguns are used.

At the end of a Yale rabbit hunt, a buyer is on hand to take the rabbits. Some foxes are often taken, and he carefully appraises them and buys the entire lot. Hunt proceeds are used to finance movies that are shown on the outside wall of the Yale lumber yard during summer Saturday nights. Rabbit funds are also used for charitable purposes. Following this particular hunt, a young local man who had lost a limb in a farming accident came around and graciously thanked everyone. The money would go to defray his medical expenses.

At noon we boarded the school buses and headed north. Claude arranged for little Jonny to ride in a rabbit truck as he was too young to hunt. Jonny had one fine time that day, a day he would probably never forget. That afternoon we took approximately 400 rabbits and three foxes. Sandwiches and refreshments followed at the Yale Community Building, a one-time café.

Janet, my sister, and her family had a safe trip home after their South Dakota Christmas and rabbit hunt. We heard from Janet about a week later. On the day that Jonny returned to school, his class played “Show & Tell.” They were to describe a Christmas vacation activity or one of the gifts they had received. Jonny chose to tell his class about the Yale rabbit hunt. All went seemingly well as the class was enthralled with Jonny’s great adventure.

That evening my sister received a phone call from Jonny’s teacher. The teacher was concerned about the lies that Jonny told his classmates. According to the teacher, Jonny persisted in telling his peers about a hunt he went on with his Dad, Grandad, and Uncle Roger. Jon said that he actually helped to fill a pickup with dead rabbits! Among other things, while holding his hands two feet apart to denote the size of a South Dakota jackrabbit, Jonny claimed that over 400 giant rabbits had been killed. (The Chicago area had no jackrabbits, only cottontails.)

After a heated discussion, my very upset sister told the teacher that everything Jonny had said was true and slammed down the phone.

What ever happened to our jackrabbits might be a greater mystery than what has happened to our pheasants. We can probably conclude that the rabbit demise might be linked to a change in farming practices although predators, primarily raptors, could be a part of the cause.

Back in the jackrabbit heyday, farm fields were often plowed in the fall. For whatever reason, jackrabbits loved to hide in the deep furrows. This might have offered protection against raptor attacks. However, there’s one problem with this argument. Out on our western prairies, the rabbits have all but disappeared where plowing was never an issue.

I don’t believe this rabbit thing is related to climate change as southern states such as Texas have rabbits. Perhaps the rabbit demise is related to herbicides and pesticides. I’d certainly welcome your thoughts.

Have a meaningful Christmas, and let’s look hopefully forward to the coming year. See you next week.