The worst plague of rabbits in recent memory blighted the Bordeaux grape harvest this year.
Harvest began last week in the celebrated Medoc region of Bordeaux, and wine makers are reporting massive losses in their grape crops.
"More than 15 percent of our harvest has been swallowed up by the Bugs Bunny gang," Bruno Von der Heyden of the 500 year old Chateau de Malleret estate wrote in a blog. A neighbour of Von der Heyden said she caught 500 of the long-eared munchers on her land alone.
And the bunnies have an extra sting in the cottontail - they are eating the best the vineyards have to offer.
"In some places, there's nothing left because they started eating the vines in May. Elsewhere, they've been eating the grapes, and not any old grapes either. They get the mature ones," said Merlot grape grower Martine Cazeneuve.
It seems conditions over the past year have been ideal for bunnies. A dry summer stopped the spread of a disease that usually thins the rabbit population while at the same time proving too hot for some of the plants the bunnies usually eat and forcing them to take to the grapes.
Local growers have called for culling measures to be taken, including bringing in marksmen or ferrets to dine on them.
Looks like a lot of rabbit on the menu for the next few months.
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