Are There More Rabbits in Northeast Portland?

I live in the Hollywood neighborhood and have noticed a profusion of rabbits. I used to see them in the fancier parts, like on Alameda, but now they’re practically right on busy streets like Northeast Sandy. Am I suddenly more observant, or are there really more rabbits? —Sue

Before I begin, Sue, I want to assure you I didn’t pick this question just to set up a joke about a guy with a family of rabbits living in his ass whose name is Warren. There are several factors that could cause an increase in rabbit sightings, even in more urban parts of Portland.

For starters, it’s summer. Eastern cottontails (almost certainly the species you’re seeing) can breed year round, but their peak season is spring, so this year’s litters are just now getting big enough to venture out into the wider world to take advantage of summer’s abundant feeding opportunities. With apologies to Elmer Fudd, it’s rabbit season.

But I suspect you’re suggesting a year-over-year, rather than seasonal, increase in the rabbit population. You may have heard that, left unchecked, rabbit populations tend to increase rapidly. It’s largely starvation and predation (not to be a downer) that control their numbers. Mild winters, like the one Portland just had, help with the food supply, which reduces the starvation factor.

As for predation, I was sure a downturn in the urban coyote population had caused the bunny boom. Unfortunately, data from the Portland Urban Coyote Project suggests our coyotes are doing just fine, so that’s not it. But what about the fact that, because of those coyotes, worried Portlanders are increasingly keeping their hasenpfeffer-loving cats indoors full time? With an estimated 700,000 cats within the city limits, Portland’s (very) roughly 150 coyotes may be the best thing that ever happened to its rabbits.

Who knows? It’s probably some combination of all of these. Then again, Sue, you’re not the only person to ask this question in the past week, and that makes me a little nervous. I’m sure everything is fine, but if you were planning on ordering a few Holy Hand Grenades of Antioch—just in case Portland is about to live through a more adorable version of Hitchcock’s The Birds*—it probably wouldn’t hurt to spring for the overnight shipping.

*Sorry, movie nerds, Night of the Lepus is too obscure a reference even for me.

Questions? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com.