Rabbit Eradication Leading to Bunny Trial?

As Easter weekend approaches, bunnies are in peril in some Orange County communities, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday by two animal rights groups.

The Animal Protection Institute and In Defense of Animals are suing the state Department of Fish and Game, saying the agency failed to enforce a law that says wild rabbits may not be poisoned.

The groups allege that nine gated communities in Orange County have contracts with pest control companies to poison cottontail rabbits with Diphacinone, which stops blood clotting and causes internal bleeding.

Rabbit carcasses are rarely removed from the neighborhood and pose a danger to family pets and children, said Nicole Paquette with the Animal Protection Institute.

“We just want them to stop killing the bunnies,” Paquette said. She adds that the label for the poison “says you must burn or bury the carcass because it’s that toxic.”

The Orange County poisoning has been happening in nine gated communities and one business, the groups said.

The lawsuit, which seeks enforcement of state laws, was filed in Sacramento Superior Court.

Officials at the attorney general’s office and Department of Fish and Game said they had not seen the lawsuit and would not comment on the issue.

In Defense of Animals spokesman Bill Dyer said many residents wanted the rabbits exterminated because they eat ornamental bushes. If residents planted bushes that rabbits don’t like, the animals would leave the communities, Dyer said.

Wildlife and human populations have clashed often as Orange County has grown. In May, hundreds of wild rabbits at Seal Beach’s Leisure World narrowly escaped being shot after complaints that the neighborhood was being overrun.

A public outcry and objections from the city’s chief of police, Mike Sellers, persuaded city officials to call off the hunt.

The rabbits were so abundant, wildlife experts said last year, because the area’s predatory foxes had lost their habitat.