Let the bunnies live.

That was the message at an informational meeting in October by a few dozen people, and that will likely be the official response of the South Whidbey School District, Port of South Whidbey, and City of Langley. All three agencies met and discussed their potential responses to a booming domestic, non-native rabbit population.

Mayor Fred McCarthy, who represents the city as part of the interagency rabbit committee, said the group came up with a “compassionate response.”

Some of those options include relocation, ferreting out the bunnies from the fairgrounds and middle school properties, and waiting to see what course nature takes. Relocation would only be done with willing property owners, McCarthy said.

The city’s role will be largely as a post for information. That idea was proposed earlier in the year, with the suggestion to have the city list rabbit repellents and plants they do not like as a way of keeping them out of residents’ yards and gardens.

The mayor said a man was reportedly trying to capture rabbits at the middle school, and said he had permission from the city to do so. The latter is false, the mayor said.