Something Bunny Is Happening

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By Mary Carpenter

RABBIT explosion—some say bunnies are becoming as common in DC as pigeons in New York City. All over the D.C., Maryland and Virginia area (DMV), gardens and selected streets—notably in Southwest DC— appear to be awash in bunny rabbits. Increased rainfall over the past five summers has fueled vegetation growth and may have started the proliferation by providing more food for hungry bunnies.

By 2024, multiple generations of rabbit descendants have become brazen residents of local gardens. And as one community gardener said, the rabbits don’t run…they don’t have any fear of humans.” And while gardeners complain about the rabbits’ voracious appetites for lettuce and carrots, a serious risk is tularemia—rabbit fever—most likely when landscapers and gardeners breathe in the bacteria after mowing or digging in the area where an animal has been sick or died.

Numbers of cases in the DMV are low, averaging around two/year—but a recent surge in four U.S. states (Colorado, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wyoming) included one death, and another man died recently on Martha’s Vineyard. Tularemia spread by rabbits is “well entrenched on Martha’s Vineyard,” according to Tufts University infectious disease professor Sam Telford, who reports between three and 15 cases of tularemia on the Vineyard every year going back to 1999.

In addition, tularemia is one of five diseases including anthrax considered to have the greatest potential for use in biological warfare—because it is highly infectious, with just a small number of bacteria needed to cause disease. Alarms sounded in 2005 when five air sensors on the Capitol Mall detected the tularemia pathogen, according to The Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota—but  Department of Homeland Security officials concluded that “the pathogen was probably a natural occurrence and not the result of bioterrorism.

While severity varies greatly, from cases that are mild and self-limiting to those with serious complications and a small percentage—less than two percent of cases in the U.S.— is fatal,  according to the National Organization for Rare Diseases. The seriousness of tularemia infections varies depending on where the bacteria enters the body: the lungs, breathing in bacteria airborne from disrupted lawns and garden soil; or the skin, through a tick bite—the most common source in the U.S. (mosquitoes are the main vectors elsewhere).

Tularemia symptoms appear three days to two weeks following exposure and can include fever and chills, muscle or joint pain, sore throat or trouble breathing. Airborne tularemia breathed in through the lungs is the most threatening and requires immediate treatment with antibiotics.  According to WebMd, the most common variety of the disease—most often due to an insect bite —is ulceroglandular tularemia, which causes skin ulcers as well as swollen lymph glands, fever, chills headache and fatigue.

Where bunnies are booming, face masks can protect gardeners who are digging, mowing or clearing brush, although the CDC advises avoiding mowing in areas where sick or dead animals have been reported. Keep pets away from wild animals that might be carrying ticks, or sick or dead ones that might be infected. Precautions against tularemia-carrying ticks are the same ones for Lyme disease: Wear long pants and high socks, use DEET, check for ticks after undressing.

Squirrels—also multiplying locally—are hosts for tularemia-carrying ticks, but most carry so many diseases they rarely live for more than four years. The tularemia-causing bacteria can survive for weeks in dead animals—as well as in soil and water—making it more common in rural areas. Children and adult males are most susceptible, being more likely to play or work close to the ground but the bacteria can also infect house pets like dogs and cats.

In my back yard, at least four generations of bunnies in visibly descending sizes are eating everything in sight. Tomato and cucumber plants have limbs and roots bitten off—sometimes while people were sitting or walking a few feet away. Fortunately my son planted one easily accessible cucumber plant to serve as a “sacrifice—which has been nipped extensively and may have helped spare harder-to-reach plants to live a little longer unscathed.

—Mary Carpenter regularly reports on topical subjects in health and medicine.