CYPRESS : Wandering Rabbits Get a Reprieve

Cute, yes, but there is a darker side to the floppy-eared, pink-nosed bunnies that have been allowed to roam Nature Park here for months: They have angered nearby residents by gnawing on their manicured lawns, jasmine plants and petunias.

Yet the City Council this week just couldn’t bear the thought of playing the role of Mr. McGregor by trapping dozens of the rabbits and sending them off to a possible death at the Orange County Animal Shelter.

Instead, it voted Monday night to give the animals--many apparently abandoned after being purchased as Easter presents--a temporary reprieve while the city explores ways to keep the gentle critters out of the neighbors’ yards.

“There is no justification to me to remove those rabbits,” Councilwoman Gail Kerry said at the meeting. “This is a nature park. It is perfectly natural to have rabbits there.” The council’s 4-1 decision--Councilwoman Margaret Arnold cast the lone vote against the rabbits--went against its staff recommendation to set out traps and catch what are believed to be as many as 30 bunnies for shipment to the shelter, which holds the animals for a time to see if anyone will adopt them. If no one claimed them, the rabbits would be destroyed, city officials conceded.

The reprieve will give the city three to five weeks to rabbit-proof two metal park gates that currently have enough of a gap on the bottom that a hungry bunny can squeeze under them to get to neighboring lawns. In a twist that would make Peter Rabbit proud, council members ordered that, while fixing the gate, city staffers are to capture any errant bunnies and place them inside park on Ball Road.

Will the plan work? Neighbors are skeptical.

“They are a real nuisance,” said Via Largo resident Estelle Seaton, who has had several of her plants munched on by the rabbits. “I just don’t see how they can do it.”

Added David James, lamenting the state of his mother’s lawn on Via Largo: “There are a lot of patches of grass missing.”

Even if the rabbits are contained, their gift for proliferation has city administrators worried. “We are not trained to take care of those kinds of animals,” said Robert Beardsley, director of public works. “Once we keep them, then what do we do with them?”

Beardsley argued that keeping the rabbits penned inside the small park may even prove to be deadly, since part of the nature area is a flood basin. If the basin ever filled, the bunnies would drown.

“They will not be able to escape from the fenced area,” he said.

Besides, word is out about the bunnies in Nature Park. People keep dumping their unwanted rabbits there, and some have taken to bringing food for them, many of which are tame and very approachable, say city officials.

This isn’t the first time the city has tried to capture the rabbits. Last month, city staff members set out a trap but were foiled by an apparent animal rights activist who stole it. Immediately afterward, the city began receiving calls from sympathetic citizens who chided officials for trying to get rid of the bunnies.

The council is expected to reevaluate the bunny brouhaha at its July 23 meeting.