Your photo made my heart sink. 
Have you ever tried blood meal sprinkled around base of plants? Also, ordinary metal window screening keeps rabbits away and it is easy to mold to the trunk. Best to let it go twice around or add hardware cloth also. Michigan winters are typically snowy, and this can be effective. I use blood meal and/or granulated garlic for baby vegetables and also around base of shrubs that are difficult to fence. The blood meal seems to keep rabbits away all winter, but I do reapply it if I don’t out. My other best weapon against deer is garlic oil applied to cloth strips . Tied to fencing of both my orchard and vegetable garden electric fence marks MY territory and works most of the time. It needs timely reapplication.
I am told you can bury them in your garden and this helps your garden grow.
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An update on the picture I had posted. That tree is fully leafed and blossomed. I suppose I do not understand and cannot yet appreciate the nature of things, but the initial alarm was apparently unwarranted. Maybe there is a chance the tree will perish later, but there is no indication of it with fruit now developing on the tree. Even my young grafts that were chowed down to their unions are pushing strong growth.
When a rabbit girdles a tree the next spring it blooms, leafs out and the tree dies in june or july. If you saw it off below the girdle the tree will send up growth. If you wait the roots will die. Trust me i know.
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