CYPRESS : Rabbits Win a Lease on Life--Barely

After hearing emotional pleas from fourth-graders to save God’s creatures, the City Council on Tuesday decided that the Nature Park rabbits can live. But it was a close call.

Mayor Richard Partin and Councilman Walter K. Bowman voted against the plan, saying that it was time that the great bunny experiment end. However, they weren’t able to persuade the rest of the council members, who voted in the rabbits’ favor.

Nature Park “was never intended to be a collection point for abandoned bunnies,” Bowman said. “I think we are overdue for having the bunnies removed.”

Animal lovers ridiculed Partin and Bowman for their stance. “I don’t agree that the rabbits are doing all the damage on those banks over there,” said Ted Hill, a rabbit supporter. “I am going to raise more Cain than you can shake a hickory stick at if you destroy those rabbits.”

In January, city staff recommended getting rid of all the rabbits because they had damaged the trees and slopes in their Ball Road park home. An actual cost of the damage was never given, but it was severe enough that some trees toppled over during the recent rains, city officials said.

Fearing the wrath of animal lovers and not wanting the death of 70 or so bunnies on their hands, the council members had postponed a decision until Tuesday.

In the meantime, the Public Works Department has been busy paring down the population. Some rabbits have been rounded up and sent to the Orange County Animal Shelter, where they are put to sleep. The others have been given new homes as part of the city’s continuing “adopt-a-bunny” program.

Now, with the population shaved from 70 down to a manageable 20 or so, city staff will continue to find homes for the remaining bunnies and will no longer send them to the shelter. But there is one small caveat--all resident rabbits must have a tattoo.

“The direction we want to continue is no new rabbits in the park,” said Assistant City Manager Dave Barrett.

New, recently abandoned rabbits will be spotted because they do not have tattoos. Last year a mass tattooing and birth control effort was undertaken to keep the bunny population in check. At the same time, the council ordered that from then on, all bunnies without tattoos would be sent to the Orange County Animal Shelter.

For more than a year, the fate of the park’s rabbits has been a regular agenda item after they were discovered snacking on lawns in the park neighborhood.

Since July, 1991, officials estimate they have spent about $5,700 on the bunnies. The majority of the money--about $5,200--has been spent on staff salaries, while the rest has gone to rabbit feed, veterinarian bills and materials for repairing the park’s fence.

In a related matter, the council gave initial approval to an ordinance designed to allow homing pigeon racers to keep their birds in residential neighborhoods, despite a petition signed by more than 120 people opposing the new law.

The ordinance allows 100 racing pigeons to be kept at a single residence. It restricts the number that can be released at one time to 40 and also places restrictions on when they can be released.