The Story of the Jack Rabbit
/Wendi Wells-Lautenbach wrote " Ran across this photo which was originally shared by my cousin Ronald Barrons. It is of my grampa Everett Barrons many years ago with a prize hare."
Everett Barrons and his prize hare.
Ronald Barrons then added : "It's hard to believe that the European hare was not always a part of our native fauna.
Even harder to accept is the fact that all the multitudes of these jacks seen in Ontario over the past 80-some years are the results of nine imports. But this is indeed true. The story, though, really begins in Brantford.
In 1912, at the Bow Park Farm, an island in the Grand River, the manager, a German immigrant, brought in several young European hares from Danzig.
Like many old country people at that time, he probably longed for some of the old familiar ties with his original homeland.
Whether this was behind his thinking or if he had ideas on marketing the animals, no one really knows.
At any rate, hares being hares and long noted for their incredible wildness, his new stock grew and became so hard to handle he finally gave them the run of the property. That winter they crossed over the Grand River ice and went wild.
For more on the disappearance of the Jack Rabbit, click here.
