Hordes Of Feral Bunnies Are Taking Over A Major Nevada City And Nobody Knows What To Do
Las Vegas, Nevada is in the midst of an invasion, and the government is powerless to stop the attack. The conquering force? Bunnies. Fluffy, feral and rapidly multiplying bunnies.
These aren’t the sleek, muscular jackrabbits of the Nevada wilderness. The city’s fuzzy invaders are genuine domestic bunnies, complete with cottontails, floppy ears and twitchy, pink noses.
The feral rabbits can be seen darting between homes, charging en masse across public parks, hopping around (and occasionally falling into) public fountains, and even getting into homes via cat doors. Though state and local forces are trying to fight the bunny plague, the invasion shows no signs of slowing down.
These bunnies may look cuddly, but they can be quite destructive. The roving rabbits gnaw on pipes, decimate window boxes, and dig up private and public property. Their corpses have even clogged sewers and storm drains.
The cause of this bizarre rabbit plague? The blame lies with irresponsible pet owners who abandoned their bunnies in public areas. The homeless rabbits eventually bred, well, like rabbits. Soon, the city’s population of feral bunnies had reached epic proportions.
The eye of the storm seems to be a mental hospital near the center of the city. Conservative estimates put the number of feral bunnies at this spot in the high hundreds, though residents familiar with the area believe the population reaches well into the thousands. The bunnies are known to roam the hospital campus at night in packs, clustering around any offerings of shredded lettuce or sweet hay.
In 2016, the Nevada state government contracted V Animal Sanctuary to capture, spay and rehome hundreds of bunnies at the hospital, hoping this would turn the tide. Though over 250 bunnies were detained, their numbers ballooned once more in just a few months.
So what’s to be done? Currently, volunteers are rallying via Facebook pages like “Bunnies Matter in Vegas Too” and sites like Las-Vegas-Bunnies.com, run by Schweiger. “Bunny dump sites” are identified and patrolled by kind-hearted citizens wielding bags of shredded lettuce, carrots and chew toys. Their aim is to keep the rabbits from fighting amongst themselves over food and territory, or roaming the streets in search of snacks. Less sympathetic individuals have been known to leave avocado lying around, which is poisonous to baby bunnies.
The future of this desert oasis seems to be a fluffy one, but volunteers such as Schweiger hope that by spaying as many rabbits as possible, there is yet hope for a bunny-free Las Vegas.
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