If you’ve been channeling your inner Elmer Fudd in a Sisyphean battle against “wascally wabbits” — you’re not alone. Cottontails, a perennial problem in this part of the country, seem to be on this rise this season.

“I’ve heard people complain, you know mentioning that the rabbits are more numerous this year than last. And that’s due to the mild winter that we had,” Chris Schlenker, director of horticulture and grounds at McCrory Gardens said. “I can’t say that we’ve seen more damage or more rabbits out here than typical. What we’ve done though is try to mitigate any shortfalls that we see around our vegetable garden especially to keep the rabbits out of there.”

The recent warm, wet spring may have helped the bunny population to bounce farther than usual.

“We’ve had a higher number of growing degree days this year,” Schlenker said. “So they were able to get their broods going even earlier, and I’m sure they’re on their multitude of three or four generation batch of bunnies by now.”

Rabbit mitigation at McCrory Gardens this year took the form of subterranean reinforcement.

“They were digging underneath and getting into the vegetable garden —because we did have kind of that hardware tack cloth that is a pretty fine grid pattern that’s protecting most of the vegetable garden. But they were able to dig under a couple little weak spots. And so yeah, we had to reinforce that with some one-inch chicken wire,” Schlenker said. “We put it down, you know, ideally like six inches or so, so they can’t easily just get underneath.”

If fencing fails, there are plenty of other options.

“There is that liquid fence that you can spray. It’s foul smelling stuff. But the downside about that is, you know, you have to reapply that quite often. And it works pretty well,” Schlenker said. “But the key is just to keep applying it.”

Chili powder and capsicum oil can also prove effective rabbit repellents.

“Absolutely — you can make some kind of homebrew kind of stuff. And then you don’t have to worry about, you know, that smell that accompanies that liquid fence — which has like, I want to say, coyote urine,” Schlenker said. “If you’re going to use the chili pepper type stuff, you want to use caution — because you don’t want to use that, and then end up having kids touch it, or rub your face or anything like that. Getting that capsicum oil on you is not friendly.”

Rabbits can sometimes be dissuaded from trespassing if they encounter a barrier of something they find unpleasant — onions, garlic, lavender, and marigold are often credited as effective obstacles.

“Marigolds are always a good one that people rely on for trying to deter rabbits from you know entering into like borders,” Schlenker said. “It depends. They can walk right by it, too. But it’s worth using every tool in the toolbox to keep them away.”

As with many problems — when it comes to restive rabbits, an ounce of prevention may be worth a pound of cure.

“We’re doing our part in trying to remove as much of what we call breeding grounds — rabbit breeding grounds — by getting rid of understory, weedy kind of areas where they like to nest,” Schlenker said. “Or trying to prevent them from being able to get under structures.”

Although backyard horticulturalists are mostly concerned with bunnies in spring and summer, the local cottontail population can prove more damaging in winter.

“Our main complaint really is the type of winter damage they can do,” Schlenker said. “Two winters ago when we had that heavy ice and snow layer that stuck around all winter — that kept rabbits from being able to eat at grass and ground cover type stuff … they really went to town on those trees and shrubs. And that’s where we lost a fair number of new trees and shrubs, just from them girdling and eating the bark off of trees.”

That’s also the consensus at the Brookings Park, Recreation & Forestry Department.

“A couple years ago in the winter, we had them gnaw on a bunch of our trees over on the southeast end of town. But we haven’t had any issues with them this year,” Allen Kruse, Parks & Forestry Superintendent, said. “If it’s, you know, a bad winter and there’s a lot of snow, they don’t have as much food so they’ll start eating our trees — the younger ones especially.”

The rabbits seem to prefer some flavors more than others.

“The fruit trees, the crab apple trees, apple trees — that’s like candy for them,” Kruse said.

City crews protect the trees before winter.

“We wrap them,” Kruse said. “It’s kind of a plastic coating that goes around them. But if the snow gets too deep, you almost got to scoop that away because they’ll start nipping on the branches if they can reach up higher.”

Midsummer bunnies binging on backyard salad bars is bothersome; but it’s still too early to predict the size of the winter rabbit population.

“They like garden products anyway, so I don’t know if that’s a red flag for winter. But you know, I think there’s a pretty good population of rabbits around,” Kruse said.

Although rabbits are persona non grata year-round at McCrory Gardens, the jackrabbit — a cousin of the cottontail and technically a hare rather than rabbit — is reluctantly welcome.

“Last year was one of the first years in a number of years that we actually had a small family of actual jackrabbits living out in our arboretum,” Schlenker said. “I told our former arboretum curator then. He’s like, ‘oh I don’t know if that’s such a good thing you know!” Because they can do damage obviously, just like cottontails on stuff. But you know, jackrabbits — they’re not as common in town, so it’s not as big of a deal and it’s more of a — Yay! Cool, we saw a jackrabbit.”

And most local residents would probably agree — the best jackrabbits are of the university mascot rather than undomesticated mammal variety.

Email Jay Roe at jroe@brookingsregister.com.