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Ravenous Rabbits Threaten Chicago Trees

Posted on: Thursday, 25 September 2003, 06:00 CDT

Ravenous rabbits are taking a bite on vegetation big-time in Chicago's Grant Park.

The biting bunnies have prompted city officials to seek expert advice on how to protect trees and other plants from the cottontail infestation.

"They're like miniature bison," Joel Brown, a University of Illinois-Chicago biology professor, said of the rabbits' grazing habits.

He told the Grant Park Advisory Board on Wednesday that the rabbits have been drawn by park vegetation - lawns, plants and the sap behind tree bark.

City officials are concerned that the rabbits might harm some 200 elm trees that are to be planted in the park, which is located along the downtown lakefront.

The advisory board is working with the city to develop a permanent, yet humane, solution to the rabbits, said board president Bob O'Neill, who called the situation desperate.

The best way to protect the new elms would be to erect wire-mesh fences around the trees, then trap and relocate the rabbits, Brown said.

O'Neill said the city made such a move last year, capturing rabbits and moving them to the Cook County Forest Preserve. But the effort did little to stifle the spread of the floppy-eared critters.

"They relocated 100 (rabbits) from the Green at Grant Park and there are hundreds and hundreds still in the park," O'Neill said.

Brown explained the reason behind the problem: The bunnies have a 30-day gestation period and produce four to six rabbits per litter, with as many as four litters per season.

While city and advisory board officials seek a bunny-friendly solution to the Grant Park problem, someone has taken a more drastic approach in years past.

In 2001, more than 100 rabbit carcasses with gunshot wounds were found in the park. No arrests have been made.

Brown called for more humane measures.

"Standard humane treatment says you capture the animal and we will return it to an ideal place for cottontail (rabbits)," he said.

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