If your house or garden has fallen victim to the feral rabbits — or voles, mice or rats — you can legally (and humanely) do something about it, under new city code adopted Monday.

City residents are now allowed to live-trap pest animals causing damage to their property. Poison and injurious traps or snares remain outlawed, and traps may not be used to capture native wildlife, birds or domestic cats and dogs.

Violators will be fined up to $300.

The original ordinance introduced last month provided for humane treatment of the captured animals to some degree, requiring property owners to monitor live traps at least every 12 hours to prevent injury or suffering. But it offered few, if any, options on what to do with the animal after capture.

The substitute Ordinance 26-54 passed Monday has a few more teeth. It explicitly states that captured pest animals cannot be abandoned or released elsewhere and must be disposed of humanely — “in a manner that avoids unnecessary pain, suffering, injury or distress to the animal.”

Captured pest animals may not be drowned, frozen, starved or shot; hunting and discharging of firearms within city limits is still illegal. Instead, property owners can keep the animal as a pet or adopt it out.

The ordinance also allows surrender of the animal to a shelter or refuge that is willing to accept them. However, Homer Animal Shelter Director Jillian Rogers said the shelter can’t accept non-domesticated rabbits.

Throughout their discussion Monday, council members were clear that passing Ordinance 26-54 alone would not solve the feral rabbit problem.

“This is not just about rabbits, although it is the rabbits that precipitated this ordinance. This is also not going to eradicate the rabbits within the city,” said council member Donna Aderhold, who co-sponsored the ordinance with Jason Davis.

“If you think about how difficult it is going to be to humanely dispose of any (pest) animal that you capture, I really don’t think that very many people are going to avail themselves of this…. I don’t think there’s going to be a wholesale slaughter of bunnies after this ordinance passes.”

Davis said it essentially legalizes what some residents have already been doing.

“It gives them a means within city limits that has not existed, that does exist outside of city limits. So this is just trying to bring some parity,” Aderhold said.

The council voted 5-1 to pass the ordinance, with Caroline Venuti still opposed.

Watch the full recording of Monday’s meeting on the City of Homer website.