‘They got out of hand’: Auckland street wrestles with fate of 400 pet rabbits

After years of complaints from neighbours and concerns about house prices, hundreds of rabbits in a suburban garden had to go by any means necessary'

It is a quiet suburban street in Auckland: plush lawns, manicured hedges, orderly picket fences, stately wooden villas. Until you come upon the rabbits. So many rabbits: scattered across the lawn, sunbathing, consorting under deck chairs, crunching piles of cauliflower leaves. Grey, black, spotted, tan, white with shining pink eyes.

Last month there were about 400, although even that estimate was probably conservative. In recent weeks, their ranks have been thinned. The rabbits' domain is the lawn of an otherwise nondescript, slightly run-down villa in the neighbourhood of Mount Eden. In the seven years they have spent quietly colonising this yard, it has become some of the country's most coveted and unaffordable real estate. House prices have risen 70%. Oblivious to it all, the rabbits find themselves on the front lines of a battle for Auckland suburbia. Now, they are the subject of a court order - hundreds of rabbits must go.