Hope for the UVic rabbits?

[Pipp]

This is just taking care of a few of them for now, but efforts will continue...

ray:

http://www.timescolonist.com/life/UVic+rabbits+sent+home+Gulf+Islands/3245082/story.html#ixzz0t2ZvUQTz


UVic rabbits sent to a new home on Gulf Islands


The first contingent of rabbits from the University of Victoria was shipped to a new home at a Gulf Islands sanctuary yesterday.

The feral rabbits, former pets or their descendants, were living under huts on campus that are about to be demolished, so they had to be relocated before the major rabbit removal operation gets underway later this summer.

Nine rabbits, including an extremely pregnant doe, were taken by Susan Vickery of Common Ground, a wildlife assistance organization that, so far, has the only local rabbit sanctuary permit approved by the Environment Ministry.

"It all went well and the mom is probably hours away from delivering her babies. At least they will have a good life," said Vickery, who already has some UVic rabbits at the sanctuary following a pilot project last year.

Trapping will continue in the area and Vickery will take up to 25 rabbits living under the huts, which will then be sterilized at a cost of about $70 a rabbit.

The project received a boost yesterday with a donation of $2,400 from a UVic staff person.

"That has just paid for all the spaying and neutering," Vickery said.

The main campaign to clear the campus of about 1,400 rabbits, leaving about 200 within the Ring Road, will start later this summer, giving rabbit advocates a chance to solicit support for a licensed sanctuary in Greater Victoria.

The university's rabbit management plan calls for all rabbits outside the Ring Road and some in the centre of campus to be trapped and either killed or sent to ministry-approved sanctuaries, where they will be sterilized.

Setting up a sanctuary will take community financial support, including a land lease, and volunteers are needed to care for the rabbits, said Vickery, who is hoping the university will come up with a suitable site.

Although UVic has worked with Vickery to allow rabbits under the huts to be taken away instead of euthanized, some rabbit activists fear babies will be left to starve in the burrows when their mothers are removed.

On the Action for UVic Rabbits site, vocal bunny supporter Roslyn Cassells said for every female caught there will likely be a nest of babies underground, starving to death.

"Will the babies be killed by falling debris or crushed to death? Is anyone trying to save the baby rabbits underground?" she asked.

Vickery said one possible solution is for volunteers to go into the area after trappers have left and look for babies in the burrows so they can be reunited with their mothers.

Tom Smith, UVic's director of facilities management, did not return calls yesterday. To donate, go to www.earthanimalrights.org/home


[email protected]

Read more: http://www.timescolonist.com/life/UVic+rabbits+sent+home+Gulf+Islands/3245082/story.html#ixzz0t7vDgHd6

 

[PixieStixxxx]

I feel for these rabbits...it is not fair that because irresponsible people let their rabbits loose, that these little souls must now suffer.

I can't think of anyone who will help.. =[ I emailed this lady offering any help I can. I just can't take in any more buns =[

 

[PixieStixxxx]

If anyone can donate money towards this cause, please do! This will help with food, spay/neutering, and building the sanctuary.
I turn 21 soon, and I've asked my friends to donate instead of presents and partying. If atleast one rabbit is saved, then this is worth it!

http://www.earthanimalrights.org/shop/5191

 

[Pipp]

:bump:

Hey April, I've been looking for you. I don't think you're getting my texts.

I want to do a yard sale/bunny meet up this weekend and donate some proceeds to the Vic bunnies.

Can you come?


sas ray:

 

[Pipp]

I had to just reproduce this, but visit the link! Give the news source a hit!

http://www.bclocalnews.com/vancouver_island_south/saltspringislanddriftwood/news/98377904.html

Salt Spring woman finds home for UVic rabbits

BySean McIntyre - Gulf Islands Driftwood
Published:July 14, 2010 10:00 AM

Susan Vickery at her Stark Road home/animal care facility with a young rabbit.photo by sean mcintyre

Buy Gulf Islands Driftwood Photos Online

Just over a week ago, Salt Spring’s Susan Vickery had loads of good intentions and a rough plan to rescue some of the rabbits that have overtaken part of the University of Victoria campus.
Thanks to an outpouring of support from donors on Vancouver Island, across Canada, the United States and as far away as the United Kingdom, she’s now got more than $60,000 and space to build an animal sanctuary on a donated Saanich Peninsula acreage.
“How good is that?” she said over the phone on Monday.
“Has the community ever been responding . . . that’s a lot of money.”
A few days earlier, during a tour of her Stark Road home/animal care facility, Vickery was already ecstatic about the $10,000 she’d received in online pledges.
The UVic bunnies have hopped in and out of headlines in recent years amidst debate on how to manage the cuddly critters.
The latest tally pegs the university’s rabbit population at anywhere between 1,000 and 1,500 animals. The thriving herd is attributed to people who felt the university’s sprawling green spaces offered an ideal place to abandon unwanted pets.
“Of course, the rabbits are only being rabbits. It’s not their fault that they’re here: people caused the problem,” said Vickery, who co-ordinates the Earth Animal Rights’ UVic Feral Rabbit Pilot Project.
Vickery’s project took on a whole new significance in late June when the university announced its intention to cull, sterilize or relocate the campus’ rabbits.
News that a preliminary group of UVic rabbits had found sanctuary on Salt Spring travelled among the university’s staff and students. The media soon got hold of the story and the donations began to trickle in.
Early Monday, Vickery learned that a group known as the Fur-Bearer Defenders had contributed $50,000 to the pilot project.
Another call, later that morning, came from a farmer on the Saanich Peninsula who offered long-term accommodation for the rabbits on land near the Butchart Gardens.
“When the university speaks, people are listening; even if nobody likes what it’s saying, people are still listening,” she said. “A lot of people are very unhappy about [the cull] and they want the university to take another route.”
Vickery has operated Earth Animal Rights as a registered charity since 2001.
Up until last week it housed a few dozen rabbits, some roosters and a couple of cats. Those among the menagerie of rescued and recovered animals have learned to coexist peacefully under their keeper’s watchful eye. Even the dog, Cedar, knows there’s a line that must never be crossed.
As if accustomed to the inevitable question about the impact escapees can have on the local landscape and gardens, Vickery notes that every rabbit at her sanctuary is spayed or neutered as soon as possible.
The first batch of rabbits Vickery received from UVic has already been to see an island veterinarian and are now being kept in cages approved by the provincial government. Most of her rabbits will be relocated to the Saanich acreage once land-use negotiations are concluded.
“I’m a responsible person, I’ve been doing this for years,” she said. “Rabbit breeders on the island who do not spay or neuter are the real threat.”
Pet owners seeking to “set their animals free” are another major cause for concern.
In a recent letter sent to the Salt Spring Island Conservancy by the province, the Ministry of Environment outlines the potential harm that feral rabbits can cause to the local environment and gardens.
Much of the problem, the letter states, is due to “people who have the attitude that these are cute animals that are not causing any harm.
“These behaviours and beliefs can complicate any effort to manage the situation as efforts to control rabbit populations are often met with resistance.”
The government letter came in response to a conservancy query for information on how to manage feral rabbits and non-native species.
Whereas the majority of domestic rabbits are European rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculu), rabbits commonly spotted hopping alongside island roadways and in gardens are eastern cottontail rabbits (Sylvilagus floridanus), themselves introduced to the Sooke area by hunters in the early 1960s.
Roughly five years ago, the Salt Spring Island Conservancy established an online wildlife reporting tool as a way to monitor population trends for species such as the eastern cottontail.
According to Linda Gilkeson, the conservancy’s executive director, this year’s reported sightings are off the charts.
“It’s been building and this year we’ve reached critical mass,” she said.
For more details about Vickery’s relocation campaign, visit http://www.earthanimalrights.org. More information about feral rabbits and the island’s non-native rabbit population is available from the conservancy at http://www.saltspringconservancy.ca.

 

[PixieStixxxx]

Yay!
I love how this community is getting together to save bunnies once again! I just hope Richmond decides not to do something upsetting next. (Although kudos to the city of Richmond for banning the sale of rabbits)

 

[Pipp]

I didn't know the babies died (or the adults).

So sad!


sad :sad:

 

[PixieStixxxx]

Ohh no.. I didn't know that some rabbits died =[

Jeez, atleast let the people who care for the rabbit's welfare do the trapping. It;ll cost less too.

 

[Nancy McClelland]

seems like they are just trying to make it go away now that their in the spotlight.

 

[TreasuredFriend]

PixieStixxxx wrote:

Yay!
I love how this community is getting together to save bunnies once again! I just hope Richmond decides not to do something upsetting next. (Although kudos to the city of Richmond for banning the sale of rabbits)

Agreed.

Great link Pipp with many important statements made.

 

[TreasuredFriend]

Any updates?

Hindsight. You wish UVic would have done something sooner, to spare more innocent rabbits being born. And I wonder if the population was dogs and cats, would this make any difference among the UVic officers?

UVic mentality. :rollseyes

 

[tonyshuman]

They did try some TNR programs but with new arrivals frequently, of other people dropping off intact former pets, they weren't able to sterilize enough. With people continuing to abandon unfixed rabbits there, they literally would never be able to get ahead of the population for spay/neuters. Unfortunately it's not just the UVic people who have the wrong mindset, it's also the former pet owners.

It's unfortunate that they can't make a pharmaceutical that can quickly, safely, and easily sterilize animals. It would be awesome for feral cat and dog populations too--just offer food or water doped with this sterilization drug to these animals, and you don't have to go through all of the work of TNR or TSR. Having volunteered with a spay/neuter clinic for cats (pets and ferals) at the Humane Society, all of these surgeries are rather involved, and it can be quite hazardous to the staff and volunteers to handle some of the feral animals, not to mention the risks involved in the surgeries and recoveries.

off my soapbox now, anyway it would be an awesome thing if the scientists (eep that's me) could figure out how to do that.

 

[Pipp]

I think the problem was the rescues just couldn't get it together to house the rabbits. It wasn't supposed to be a capture and release program.

Easter story: UVic’s rabbit population facingcull

April 4, 2010

From the Globe & Mail (Mar 30):

It could be curtains for hundreds of rabbits plaguing the University of Victoria after a pilot project to capture, sterilize and relocate 150 bunnies was a flop.
The project ground to a halt just one-third of the way through after it was determined that just a handful of rabbits could be relocated.

Only 51 rabbits were caught by the company in charge, Common Ground, at a cost to UVic of $17,743 – or $348 per rabbit. But animal refuge societies could not accommodate any more rabbits. And efforts to find adoptive homes ran into the restrictions of the B.C. Wildlife Act, which requires special permits to take on any animal born in the wild. In the end, 40 of the 51 rabbits were returned to UVic.

With the pilot project’s below-par results and upwards of 1,500 rabbits at UVic approaching breeding season, many of them injured or malnourished, a cull is being seriously considered, said Richard Piskor, the university’s director of occupational health, safety and environment.

“Should there be a cull, we would not announce it in advance,” Mr. Piskor said recently. “This is a very emotional topic.”
A cull would most likely be done by trapping the rabbits, followed by veterinarians administering lethal injections, said Sara Dubois, the B.C. SPCA’s manager of wildlife services. While the B.C. SPCA doesn’t endorse a cull, it may be the only option left, she said.

During the pilot project, rabbit-trapping was “remarkably easy,” Mr. Piskor said. The 51 rabbits were trapped within eight hours, using five traps that contained bedding and food.

“They walked right in,” he said.

UVic’s bunnies, either dumped by irresponsible adults or descended from abandoned pets, have a short life and painful death, said Ms. Dubois, who recalls rabbits as a problem a decade ago when she was a UVic student.

As chief safety officer, Mr. Piskor is concerned about hazards created by the rabbits. At UVic’s sports fields, they leave multiple calling cards in the form of feces and burrows. A high-performance athlete could suffer a career-ending injury by stepping in a rabbit hole, Mr. Piskor said.

Adding fuel to the cull is that, of the trapped rabbits, half of them were one year old or less, indicating high mortality rates. Many had injuries, including missing eyes, torn ears and infections. One had to be euthanized. And almost all were malnourished, Mr. Piskor said.

Then there’s the cleanup. Each day about three rabbits are killed by vehicles on UVic’s main road.

“I really feel for the grounds staff,” Mr. Piskor said.
When Victoria General was overrun with roughly 600 rabbits about a decade ago, it hired a sharpshooter. Today, only about a dozen rabbits surround the hospital, achieved by selective culling. In late 2008, the City of Kelowna also used sharpshooters to cull rabbits in the resort centre.

“We don’t approve of that,” Ms. Dubois said.
Instead, the B.C. SPCA has been actively lobbying pet stores to sell only sterilized rabbits.

On March 27, Victoria’s New Petcetera had four dwarf rabbits for sale, costing $50 to $65. None were sterilized.

Pets West, also in Victoria, had one rabbit, Razzle Dazzle, spayed and from the SPCA. She had been abandoned in Mount Doug Park, another popular rabbit repository. Once she’s sold for $30, the money will be donated to the SPCA, said Pets West assistant manager Danielle Molyneaux.

But for five days before Easter and two days after the holiday, rabbits, which can live up to 12 years, won’t be available at Pets West.

“Ninety per cent of people who buy rabbits at Easter get rid of them,” said Ms. Molyneaux, who has worked nearly 11 years at the pet store, preceded by seven years at the SPCA.

Adults buy them for children but the novelty wears off, and, considered a disposable item, the animals end up in places like UVic.

“Don’t get rabbits for Easter,” Ms. Dubois advised.

 

[TreasuredFriend]

I give you guys, on the frontlines, so much credit for holding in there and doing what you can to -- accurately provide information, and assisting with as many as you can getting to safety.

Pushes your guts inside out, rips your heart out (if you got one) when you learn of the cruel things going on behind the scenes, and IRRESPONSIBLE People...

Dumping, and turning their backs. :banghead:banghead +

 

[NorthernAutumn]

tonyshuman wrote:

...

It's unfortunate that they can't make a pharmaceutical that can quickly, safely, and easily sterilize animals. It would be awesome for feral cat and dog populations too- ...

off my soapbox now, anyway it would be an awesome thing if the scientists (eep that's me) could figure out how to do that.

Just wanted to note here that chemical sterilization has been available for deer populations for many years. These articles may interest those of you interested in chemical solutions.

http://www.aphis.usda.gov/wildlife_damage/nwrc/publications/06pubs/perry061.pdf

This is a neat article about current non-surgical contraceptive development
http://www.petside.com/petsideblog/2010/01/non-surgical-pet-population-co.php

This article outlines modern non-surgical sterilization methods:
http://www.theriojournal.com/article/S0093-691X(06)00238-X/abstract

Current research is indicating that surgical speutering doesn't have as much effect on some populations though: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2664.2006.01264.x/pdf

This link may offer some help: http://www.fur.ca/TRS_index.php

If the trapping procedures are inhumane, I'm sure that there is legislation to lean on governing humane treatment - Any support from your animal welfare gov't body?

Keep up the good work out there, guys! We're cheering for you!

 

[MugShotHollands]

euthanizing them if probably the best idea for these guys. They probably all have disease.. and they probably arent socialized with people so when they do get adopted out they will be very nervous and it isnt fair for them. Death isnt the worst part of life to be honest.

 

[PixieStixxxx]

MugShotHollands:

These rabbits are extremely social. They are very used to people, and are well known for climbing up your leg and munching on veggies just inches away. The two I have are more friendly than my all my rabbits combined. So please don't go around saying awful things like that. You have no idea what these rabbits are like or the situation of potential adoptions.

I work in a veterinary clinic and had both my uvic rabbit tested. They are healthy and have no diseases.

 

[MugShotHollands]

The easiest and more practical way to kill a rabbit it by dislocating it neck. Its pain free. And costless






edited for inflammatory content

 

[Pipp]

MugShotHollands, we ask that rescuers don't post criticisms or opinions in the Rabbitry forum as a courtesy, and we ask the same of breeders, please don't post in Rescue Me.

This is adding nothing to the efforts at hand, please don't post again.


sas

 

[MugShotHollands]

Sorry I didnt know. Well I hope they all get adopted!