Fugitives from Easters past

It's Easter. Where's Elmer Fudd When You Need Him?

Excerpts:

The Easter bunnies of Long Beach are multiplying like rabbits.

Hundreds of bunnies—some of them fugitives from Easters past—lounge in the shade and hop alongside students of Long Beach City College, a small, sunny campus south of Los Angeles. They also fight bloody turf wars, burrow deep holes in the lawns, and devour thousands of dollars of landscaping.

"It's just gotten out of hand," said Tim Wootton, deputy director of facilities and a member of the school's Rabbit Population Management Task Force, or as he calls it, the Bunny Committee. The task force's task: a massive round-up of abandoned bunnies and their offspring.

...

As a destructive force cloaked in cuteness, bunnies are hard to beat.

Billions of rabbits overran Australia after two dozen were imported there from Europe in the 1800s. Without severe winters, the rabbits thrived, consumed native plants and prompted serious erosion.

More recently, 1,000 rabbits have made their home on the campus of the University of Victoria in British Columbia, where bunnies and gardeners are locked in battle over the school's prized rhododendron garden.

Pet owners figured the Long Beach campus was a good place to drop their unwanted rabbits because there was already a small wild population here, school officials said. Workers felt sorry for the critters and installed feeders. School officials say there are more than 300 rabbits on the 163-acre campus.

On a recent day outside the library, students were gathered in small cliques around the grassy quad. So were dozens of bunnies. Most of the rabbits sat under the shade of a giant juniper tree. Others dug frantically and chased each other in circles.

Comment: I think it is cruel (to the animals) to give kids bunnies or chicks for Easter! We have bunnies that live under our concrete porch.