MIAMI - Sharpshooters working at night killed 35 western black-tailed jackrabbits at Miami International Airport, officials said, while trappers worked through the day trying to rescue the rest of the colony.
The rabbits were condemned after being deemed a danger to planes using the airport.
Two U.S. Department of Agriculture marksmen with shotguns and rifles hunted the rabbits, which feed at night, from sundown Thursday to dawn Friday, department spokesman Ed Curlett said. Trappers had already caught more than 300 when the hunters set out to eliminate an estimated 30 to 50 remaining.
The shooters planned to be back out each night over the weekend, following a judge's ruling Thursday letting the government kill the creatures.
Licensed trapper Todd Hardwick was back out at sunrise Friday to see if any rabbits were left. He found one, caught in a cage baited with an apple. He planned to send it to a nature preserve in Texas to join other rabbits captured at the airport.
The airport's jackrabbit colony was established in the 1960s when some escaped after being flown in for training greyhound racing dogs, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said.
The Federal Aviation Administration ordered the airport 11/2 years ago to get rid of the rabbits because their carcasses attract vultures, increasing the possibility of dangerous airplane-bird collisions.
