Langley has seen a mass die-off of its fluffiest

The town of Langley on Whidbey Island has a unique tourist attraction — wild bunnies. These don’t look like your regular, run of the mill wild rabbits. Instead, they’re the cute, soft, "just want to squeeze them" bunnies you’d see in a pet store. The feral domestic bunny population started in Langley decades ago — a couple of bunnies escaped during a barnyard scramble — where animals are let loose in a barn and kids rush to catch them.

But now, those bunnies are in trouble.

An outbreak of rabbit hemorrhagic disease has led to mass die-offs of the small mammals on the island.

It’s gotten so bad that in July, Island Disposal, the waste management service that collects trash on Camano and Whidbey Island, had to set up containers for a new type of waste — rabbit carcasses. The disease was first seen in the San Juan Islands in 2019 and has since worked its way further into the state.

The Washington State Department of Agriculture confirmed the first case in a wild rabbit in Langley last month.