A Tenleytown resident says he was just asking some questions about bunnies on the local listserv, but his query prompted more than a day of heated exchanges on the neighborhood public forum.

Jeff Moore, who has lived in Tenleytown for more than three decades, sent the listserv a copy of his note to the D.C. Department of Energy and Environment, in which he contended that his Northwest neighborhood appeared to be facing a “burgeoning population of rabbits,” based on his observations. The animals are a bother for gardeners and drive his dog to distraction, he wrote, asking if the agency was tracking rabbits and knew for sure whether the numbers were increasing. He inquired if rabbits were vectors of disease, and whether the agency had a plan for “this issue.”

That note sent the 5,400 member-strong Tenleytown listserv on a journey down the rabbit hole. (The listserv, which has been around since the early 2000s, has long been a digital space for locals to air gripes and offer opinions.)

In Moore’s estimation, none of the responses “expressed straightforward agreement with my intended point, which was: let’s get some facts about whether rabbits are increasing and whether it’s a problem,” he tells DCist over email. Instead, he says, “There was pretty close to a 50/50 split between ‘I-agree-with-you-rabbits-are-a-problem-let’s-get-rid-of-them’ (which wasn’t actually what I was saying, in fact) on the one hand, and ‘it’s-nature-live-with-it-we-like-all-the-cute-rabbits-don’t-poison-the-rabbits’ on the other.”

Moore was accused by some respondents of suggesting that the city kill animals. “You mean, deal with the issue by having the city put poison down to kill them, which in turn might kill the foxes and other animals running around?” wrote one. Another begged, “Humans do enough to harm wildlife. Can we please not hurt our neighborhood rabbits?”

Less than half an hour after Moore’s initial message, another resident also wrote to the D.C. DOEE representative (cc’ing the listserv along the way) to say that “Jeff Moore is not writing on the behalf of our neighborhood and our listserv seems to be very comfortable with the presence of rabbits.”

But that wasn’t entirely true, either. One Tenleytown listserv member told a story about contracting Lyme disease the same day as an interaction with a nest of young bunnies, concluding that the animals “can be a menace.” Another noted that the “unruly proliferation of rabbits in the neighborhood” has been “eating every single plant we try to grow … I would support an intervention from the Wildlife Dept, if not in the all neighborhood at least in my property.”

Perhaps the best genre of reply was from those referencing Looney Tunes and its “wascally wabbit,” Bugs Bunny. There were quite a few of those.

But that even split Moore observed was only apparent to him, because the “‘positives’ overwhelmingly responded just to me, while the ‘negatives’ overwhelmingly shared their responses with the whole group,” he says. “So anyone looking on from the outside would probably assume that the neighborhood was rabidly [hah! or maybe ‘rabbit-ly’] pro-bunny, when in fact that wasn’t/isn’t the case at all.”

Lauren Crossed, the wildlife program manager for the Humane Rescue Alliance, says that the only wild rabbit species in the District is the Eastern cottontail rabbit. (District residents also have pet bunnies, but “domestic rabbits do not tend to fare very well outside, and so they don’t go on for generations,” Crossed says.) As of 2015, DOEE considers it among its species of greatest conservation need, a designation given to species that the department is interested in protecting or learning more about. The title has been afforded to 21 of the 32 species of mammals observed in D.C. since 2005. Crossed says the biggest complaint she hears about the animal is that they attack people’s gardens.

In a city that is one year into a first-of-its-kind cat census, it’s not totally out of hand to imagine a similar effort underway for another popular mammal. But DOEE relies on a different method for counting rabbits—citizen scientists. Since 2013, the agency has solicited residents to share its sightings of rabbits (as well as chipmunks). In 2016, citizens reported 301 rabbits to the database, per DOEE, but participation in the program varied widely based on quadrant.

“DOEE is looking to expand the scope of participation in rabbit reporting in 2017, particularly in the northeast, southeast, and southwest quadrants of the District,” the website stated at the time. “Due to the exceptional efforts of residents in Wards 3 and 4 over the past three years, DOEE has a better understanding of where rabbit populations are residing in the northwest quadrant of the District.” Tenleytown is in Ward 3.

The agency is slated to release more up-to-date data at the start of 2020, though it noted that “communication with the public via emails and phone calls detailing increased rabbit sightings is worth noting both on a District-wide and neighborhood basis.”

Still, Tenleytown listserv participants with a soft spot for bunnies need not worry. “Currently with respect to rabbits, the Department lets nature take its course,” the agency wrote. “A healthy rabbit population is generally a good indicator of environmental conditions on the ground.”