By Jacqueline McDonough

For the Homer Independent Press

Whether you are passing by the high school, the library or even the hospital, you can’t miss them: loose domestic rabbits grazing on spring grass all across the city of Homer. Where some Homer residents see cuteness, others see a menace to gardens and a distraction to dogs. According to Jillian Rogers, director of the Homer Animal Shelter, “this seems to be kind of a boom year,” but feral rabbits have long been a problem in Homer and in many parts of Alaska.

Unlike snowshoe hares, which are native to Alaska, these bunnies are a domesticated European species that has been released into the wild — either escapees or dumped by their owners. Besides feasting on backyard gardens and digging up landscaping, feral rabbits can attract predators like coyotes, wolves and bears into neighborhoods. While they cannot interbreed with snowshoe hares, they can spread parasites and disease to their wild native relatives. 

The website for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game reports that feral rabbits have established populations in places like Juneau, Seward, Valdez and even some islands in the Aleutians. Last month, Anchorage addressed its growing non-native bunny population with a new ordinance that prohibits feeding of wild animals, including loose domestic rabbits.

Homer’s rabbit problem has been a long time in the making. Rosemary Fitzpatrick, former the author of the popular Kachemak Gardener column in the Homer News, complained back in 2020 that someone had released bunnies on Mountain View Drive. An August 2014 police log entry detailed an irate gardener calling for help battling the release of rabbits on Fireweed Lane. 

When asked about the current abundance of bunnies, local ADF&G wildlife biologist Jason Herreman speculated that Homer had pretty high numbers going into last winter, and then the relative lack of snow allowed for more to survive into spring. In addition, “the wild hare population is still up, so their natural predators haven’t really switched to other food sources yet,” Herreman said. He has received complaints about people’s feeding feral rabbits in several different locations, from the West Homer area to downtown.

Herreman said that the non-native rabbits are considered deleterious exotic wildlife under state regulations, but that they are on the “clean list.” What this means is that they may be owned or imported into Alaska, but they may not be released into the wild or fed loose in people’s yards. Anyone with an Alaska hunting license can pursue rabbits with no bag limit, although hunting is not allowed within city boundaries, as specified by Homer City Code. 

People have been calling the Homer Animal Shelter about the issue, and there has been increased interest from the city council, said Rogers. She urged people to protect their gardens with fencing and to not feed the rabbits. She can even empathize. 

“We’ve got several that live around the shelter,” she said. “People will pull up and say, oh, your bunnies got loose, but we had two litters born under the shed around the shelter last year, so we’re dealing with it as well.”

The trouble, admitted Rogers, is “there’s just so many of them, and they can breed every thirty days.” One litter can contain up to fourteen babies or “kits,” and efforts to slow their reproduction can be costly. She said that a decade ago Juneau launched a “Bunny Task Force” that included the approach of trapping rabbits for a spay and neuter program. While neutering a male rabbit costs the same as neutering a cat, spaying a female rabbit can be as much as $800 due to surgical challenges and the way the species metabolizes anesthetic.

There has not been a statewide Department of Fish and Game initiative to curb the population, according to Herreman, and he was not aware of domestic rabbits spreading beyond residential areas where they have had food supplementation and protection from predators. However, the Homer ADF&G office has live traps that Homer residents can borrow with a deposit if they wish to catch a nuisance rabbit on their property.

However, Herreman cautioned would-be trappers that it is also illegal to transport a caught rabbit and release it somewhere else. People would have the option of keeping it themselves for a pet or dispatching it.

The Homer Animal Shelter is not always capable of receiving rabbits.

 “We tell people if you could walk up to a bunny, pick it up, and snuggle it, then we can take it in. It has to be adoptable,” said Rogers. 

The shelter has accommodated four or five pet bunnies at a time, but they require significant space and are difficult to adopt out. Homer does not have a network of pet rabbit foster homes, so sometimes there is a wait before more strays can be taken in.

Most of the rabbits seen around Homer are not amenable to handling and therefore are not suitable as pets. Rogers is aware that some locals do eat them and said that although they can carry parasites, if cooked thoroughly they are “very edible.” 

Both Herreman and Rogers agreed that Homer has an established feral rabbit population and that residents are mostly left to contend with the consequences as best they can.

 “Just like the pigeons, they showed up here and are not native here,” Rogers said. “I think they’re going to be part of the landscape of Homer, unfortunately.”