SYCAMORE TOWNSHIP, OH − For weeks, Liza Swaile caught glimpses of baby bunnies in her backyard. The Sycamore Township resident would notice the bunnies’ mothers hopping through the yard, and eventually she found three active nests there.
Swaile, an adoptions coordinator for Cincinnati Animal Care, decided she would do what she could to help the bunnies thrive − mostly, just leaving them alone. So she stopped mowing the grass in the backyard, ensuring the habitats weren’t harmed.
But on May 29, Swaile said she was left burying dead bunnies after Sycamore Township contractors mowed her lawn and destroyed the nests.
Township officials said they were enforcing a weed violation issued weeks earlier, and Swaile had plenty of time to negotiate with the township but chose not to.
“All the baby bunnies are gone,” she said. “I haven’t seen the moms that had been coming back and taking care of them.”
Harry Holbert, Sycamore Township’s planning and zoning administrator, told The Enquirer that Swaile had been given chances to appeal her notice of violation and mow herself, and the township and its contractors were simply following a process outlined by Ohio law.
“I don’t know of anybody that would say ‘I want to go out and kill a rabbit today,'” Holbert said. “Their job is to cut the grass. They’re not looking to hurt anything. They’re not looking to damage anything. They’re hired to come in and take care of tall weeds and vegetation. That’s it.”
‘No baby bunnies left’
Swaile received a letter April 21 stating her front and back yards violated the township’s weed ordinance. On May 6, Swaile received another letter that said her property had officially been declared a nuisance after she did not mow. The notice said she had seven more days to cut the grass and weeds before the township came in to mow itself.
Swaile said her partner, Spencer Wendell, cut the grass so it met the township’s 8-inch maximum on May 18 − past the township’s deadline to fix the conditions but before the township came to mow on May 29.
“Granted, it was still a little bit long, but it was under what (the township) regulated,” she said.
Swaile said contractors hired by the township moved a metal grate she had placed over one of the nests in the yard. Swaile had put a sign on the grate reading “Please be a decent human for a second − bunnies underneath −”. Swaile and Wendell said they spray-painted orange circles around the nests to make them easier to see in their yard.
A representative for Les Sparks LLC, the contracting company, did not respond to a phone call asking what protocols contractors follow to protect wildlife and personal property when abating conditions.
“There were no baby bunnies left,” Swaile said. “And we found (three) deceased ones after they left.”
Swaile and Wendell now owe the township around $216 to cover the cost of the mowing. If they don’t pay by July 25, a lien will be placed on her property, according to an email Swaile received from her mortgage company.
Now, the couple could go through the entire process again. On July 9, Swaile received another letter that her home had been declared a nuisance again.
In a July 14 email to the township administrator Greg Bickford, Wendell also said he wanted to file a complaint against a zoning inspector for ignoring their pleas for the bunnies and asked officials to void the $216 fee. Bickford responded to the email that he would review the information provided.
“20 minutes later I had a slightly shorter yard, 3 dead baby bunnies, a mature and established bush that was inexplicably cut from my non-public-facing fence, and tons of cigarette butts from the landscaping crew,” Wendell said in the email.
Township: ‘Resolution, not prosecution’
Holbert said when the township saw the same conditions seven days after the initial notice, it was required by Ohio law to deal with the conditions itself. He said the contractors walked the property to look for nests before mowing.
Holbert said that residents who receive notices can reach out to his department. “So it’s about that resolution, not prosecution,” he said.
But Swaile said she hasn’t received a substantial response from anyone in the township.
“Thank you for killing our baby bunnies in our yard,” Swaile wrote in one email to officials.
Bickford said it costs the township anywhere between $500 to $1,000 each time it has to hire contractors to mow at a property. He said the board of trustees wants to “keep an orderly community” and in suburbs, that means “orderly maintained yards.”
“We don’t want to be the grass police. Just take care of your property,” he said.
The Enquirer reported in June that Sycamore Township threatened to mow another resident’s front lawn over what the resident says are native plants part of her monarch waystation. As of July 20, the township had not mowed Holly Talmage’s yard. Talmage said she appealed the township’s decision to declare her property a nuisance and retained an attorney.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Sycamore Township residents claim weed enforcement killed bunnies
Reporting by Mia Hilkowitz, Cincinnati Enquirer / Cincinnati Enquirer
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Mia Hilkowitz, Cincinnati Enquirer | USA TODAY Network
