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When they’re in the shelter, rabbits can be kept safe and sound and single, ensuring that their legendary breeding habits won’t turn your facility into a bunny singles bar. But on occasion, the habits of rabbits can cause problems from outside your walls: Feral rabbit populations have become a problem in many areas. And when rabbits go wild, the community often expects its local animal shelter to solve the problem.

People’s misconceptions about domestic bunnies are often behind the creation of feral rabbit populations, says Margo DeMello, administrative director of the House Rabbit Society. “On the one hand, [people] think they’re these children’s pets, these starter pets, these really simple animals,” she says. “And on the other hand, a lot of people have the misconception that they’re wild animals and that when you get tired of them you can just take them out into a field.”

Though abandoned rabbits usually don’t live long in the wild, rabbits’ prolific breeding makes it likely that even a few surviving rabbits will quickly produce many offspring. Female rabbits are capable of producing a litter as often as once a month, DeMello says. Rabbits who aren’t killed by predators, hit by cars, or brought down by disease or starvation can reproduce quickly enough to produce large populations. And once a colony is established, it can be extremely difficult to deal with, says DeMello. Feral cats may be elusive, but at least they stay above ground. Free-roaming or feral rabbits may dig warrens that make them even trickier to trap.

When the Humane Society for Seattle/King County became involved with a colony of rabbits about six years ago, they stepped into a situation that had probably been brewing—make that breeding—for decades. In a Redmond, Washington, office park across from the headquarters of Microsoft, lived hundreds of bunnies, most of them Dutch rabbits.

People abandoned their pet bunnies in the office park, and parents even brought their kids to feed the rabbits. “To an outsider, it looked like an idyllic setting for the rabbits. It really was nothing of the sort,” says Glynis Frederiksen, director of operations for the humane society. Many of the rabbits had coccidia or other medical problems, and others had been killed by predators.

The shelter received many complaints about the situation over the years, says Frederiksen. People asked the humane society to do something, and when the organization heard that developers planned to bulldoze some of the areas the colony inhabited, they joined with the Redmond House Rabbit Society and the Progressive Animal Welfare Society in Lynnwood to begin trapping rabbits.

After a few months, they had trapped an unbelievable 650 rabbits. “It was a pretty significant investment of time and resources,” says Frederiksen. “And we wouldn’t have done it if there had not been other groups that were willing to also be involved.”

Even when shared, the burden was huge. “I feel like I had two jobs,” says Frederiksen, who acted as the main liaison. The humane society brought in 200 rabbit cages where rabbits could go through a 30-day coccidia treatment. Local veterinarians spayed and neutered the rabbits, although some had to be euthanized. The majority went to two sanctuaries.

“An incredible contingent of volunteers” played a large role in the operation and helped out with the rabbits so that regular staff wouldn’t be pulled away from their daily work, says Frederiksen. The shelter’s veterinary team was available to help with medical care and euthanasia.

The operation was a success. “I think once we reduced the population density, if there were a couple rabbits here and there left over—I hate to say it, but I think the predators probably got to them,” says Frederiksen. “They weren’t able to reproduce.”

The heavy newspaper and TV coverage of the problem helped broadcast the seriousness of the situation, and companies headquartered in the area helped install signs that discouraged people from feeding rabbits. The shelter tries to reduce the likelihood of history repeating itself by emphasizing to the public that a rabbit colony isn’t a safe setting for pet bunnies—and that it’s anything but cute.