Andrew Groves on Wildlife

Myxomatosis came in the early ’50s and that decimated the rabbit population.

I mean when you think … my predecessor at Kern, the first year they went there, caught and trapped by various means 3,000 rabbits and a lot of them used to sort of pay the rent with the rabbits.

It was nothing, you know, if you cut a field of corn in the day, if you had enough guns around it was nothing to shoot, if they could shoot, 80 or 90.

It certainly increased yields enormously, you know, they have, you know, 20 yards around the inside of the field sometimes, nothing there, you know.

This sort of thing, you know.

The Keepers kept the vermin down, like foxes, badgers, stoats, weasels, all this sort of thing, they keep them down a bit, you know.