Neighbors Bewitched by Pair of White Rabbits
by Molly Hennessy-Fiske

(article originally appeared in the News and Observer 12.8.01)

Listen to guys at the fraternity keg party, the dreadlocked driver of the Volkswagen van parked next door or the dishwasher who thinks he may be from outer space say they see white rabbits late at night. Believe them.

Raleigh has plenty of rabbits roaming back yards and greenways, but they are rarely white. A white pair with black spots have become the talk of the neighborhood around Park Avenue in West Raleigh.

Ed Carson, a dishwasher at the International House of Pancakes at Park and Hillsborough streets, has an explanation.

"This whole nation was a state of nature before we civilized it," Carson said. "There's crocodiles in Florida and mountain lions in California. There's little pockets everywhere."

Carson gives his birth date as "1947, according to the government. But I actually think I came on that Roswell space ship."

Carson, who first glimpsed a pair behind the restaurant 10 days ago while he was spreading bread crumbs for birds, is not the only one who has seen them.

Neighbors see the beady-eyed creatures all the time. The animals dart across the street at dusk, or sit on the sidewalk munching flowers. Two bounded across the field behind the restaurant Wednesday night.

The brothers at the Alpha Gamma Rho house at 119 Park Ave. have tried to chase them, as did members of the neighborhood association who went door to door this week trying to track them down.

"I kind of got the impression they were going to catch them," said Nicole Haut, 29, a seamstress who lives at 121 Park Ave., where cars and trucks painted in wild colors crowd the lawn.

The rabbits appear to be domesticated: Residents say they are calmer and heavier than wild rabbits, and too white. Some figure the scruffy pair are escaped pets or byproducts of some botched magic trick.

Some pointed fingers at the Farm House fraternity, which used to house a rooster. Chapter president Matt Benton, 21, dismissed the rumor but said the rabbits might make a nice addition "because girls would like to pet them and stuff."

No one has called Raleigh Animal Control. Animal Control officer Chuck Muhonen says he rarely gets rabbit calls "unless they're showing up in somebody's garden." He said even white varieties might be wild, and that domestics can grow stealthy, acclimating to life on the street.

For now, they remain free and well-fed.

"They're living large on IHOP food," said neighbor Eric Murray, 27. "Soon they're going to be pretty heavy."

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