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Voices column: Potential bunny boom in Richmond is everyone’s problem

Nothing is ever a problem.
rabbits
Amie Nowak (left) and Rabbitats’ Sorelle Saidman show off the latest batch of babies born in Nowak’s west Richmond townhouse complex. Both contend that the City of Richmond needs to take action before the local rabbit population gets out of control. Alan Campbell photo

Nothing is ever a problem. Until it’s a problem, right?

If you listen to a growing number of Richmond residents, strata councils and the numerous animal rescues, the rabbit population in the city is on the verge of exploding again, if it hasn’t already.

If, instead, you lend your ear to the City of Richmond, it will, for the most part, tell you that it’s keeping an eye on the situation, although its hands are tied by the Wildlife Act. It also, apparently, doesn’t have the resources to trap and house rabbits.

The “rabbit people,” for want of a better collective, are sounding the warning siren, saying that all the signs are there for a crisis: Daily reports of rabbit families multiplying every few weeks; strata councils crying foul over damaged property; and the peak of a 10-year rabbit population boom cycle upon us.

Despite the recent outbreak of rabbit hemorrhage disease (RHD) which wiped out many rabbits, the rabbit people claim the creatures have bounced back and are numbering in the several thousand across Richmond and are starting to cause mayhem by munching through people’s properties and leaving thousands of little “presents” behind them.

I’ll be honest, I haven’t gone out and counted them.

But when a busy mother-of-two is compelled to turn her backyard into a pseudo rabbit sanctuary and adoption agency and is forced to approach her strata council for financial help, it tells me there is a problem.

Amie Nowak (feature on page 30) couldn’t turn to the city’s contracted animal shelter, and local rabbit rescues are at the breaking point. So where does she go?

Some may contend she should just let the 10-strong family she’s adopted go out onto the west dyke and let nature (coyotes, eagles, owls, raccoons) take its course.

Trouble is, “nature” taking its course in the rabbit world produces more of the furry friends than the coyotes and eagles can eat.

It is, after all, what rabbits do.

If Richmond residents, their strata councils and businesses are having to take the “law” into their own hands to keep a lid on the population, then, again, it’s safe to assume there is a problem.

And, as the rabbit people point out, it’s all well and good for private property owners to conduct their own spaying and neutering program, but the rabbits on city property don’t get those memos and, thus, the cycle repeats.

According to the founder of rabbit rescue Rabbitats, creating a city-run sanctuary, complete with spaying and neutering, is the obvious answer. And, despite being a lover of the animal, she said she wouldn’t even lobby against a rabbit cull right now, if it came to that.

Although it might not be a priority at this time for the city, it seems quite clear that something needs to happen.

It’s just a matter of when and how many times the bunnies reproduce before we get there.